Chapter 6: User Administration

Overview

For the Red Hat exams, the skills you learn in this chapter are important for the Installation and Configuration portion of each exam. As described in the Red Hat Exam Prep guide, you need to know how to manage accounts and set up the user environment.

As part of learning how to set up the user environment, you will learn how to set up the Linux startup shell configuration scripts so that users' sessions are configured according to your (and their) requirements. You will learn how to create and implement policies for managing disk usage-by user or by group. Special groups can help users share files securely.

There are different ways to secure your system and network. The PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) system lets you configure how users are allowed to log in or access different services. The Network Information Service (NIS) and the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) can provide a common database of authentication and configuration files for your network.

This chapter addresses four items as listed in the Red Hat Exam Prep guide. Three are associated with the Installation and Configuration section of the RHCT exam requirements:

Attach system to a network directory service, such as NIS or LDAP.
Add and manage users, groups, and quotas, and File Access Control Lists.
Configure filesystem permissions for collaboration.

(File Access Control Lists were already addressed in Chapter 4.)

Remember that if you're studying for the RHCE, you have to know all the RHCT requirements. In addition, one item in this chapter is associated with the Installation and Configuration section of the RHCE exam requirements:

Use PAM to implement user-level restrictions.

When you take the Red Hat exams, as long as you don't cheat, it generally does not matter how you come to a solution. For example, you get the same credit whether you add users by directly editing /etc/passwd using commands such as useradd or by using GUI tools such as the Red Hat User Manager (system-config-users). As in the real world, it is the results that matter.