Create a sudo user in Ubuntu
Last updated on: 2021-05-26
Authored by: John Garcia
This article describes how to grant sudo access to a new or existing user on the Ubuntu® operating system.
Create a new user
-
Use
adduser
command followed by the new<username>
:root@server-01:~# adduser newuser Adding user `newuser' ... Adding new group `newuser' (1001) ... Adding new user `newuser' (1001) with group `newuser' ... Creating home directory `/home/newuser' ... Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
-
At the prompt, enter the password for the new user twice to set and verify it.
New password: Retype new password: passwd: password updated successfully
-
If you want to add contact information for the new user, enter it at the prompt or press ENTER to proceed with the defaults. When you finish, enter
y
to verify that the entered information is correct:Changing the user information for newuser Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default Full Name []: New Hire Room Number []: Work Phone []: Home Phone []: Other []: Is the information correct? [Y/n] y
Grant root permissions for a new or existing user.
-
Use
visudo
to edit the sudoers file.root@server-01:~# visudo
-
Text similar to the following example displays:
GNU nano 4.8 /etc/sudoers.tmp # # This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root. # # Please consider adding local content in /etc/sudoers.d/ instead of # directly modifying this file. # # See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file. # Defaults env_reset Defaults mail_badpass Defaults secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:> # Host alias specification # User alias specification # Cmnd alias specification # User privilege specification root ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL # Members of the admin group may gain root privileges %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL # Allow members of group sudo to execute any command %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL # See sudoers(5) for more information on "#include" directives: #includedir /etc/sudoers.d
-
Use the Down Arrow key to scroll to the following section:
# User privilege specification root ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
-
Add the newly created user by inserting
<username> ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
at the end of the user privilege section, as shown in the following example:# User privilege specification root ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL newuser ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
-
Press the Ctrl x to exit. Enter
y
to save, and click ENTER to finish.
Verify the permission change
-
Use
su
followed by the<username>
to switch to the new user account:root@server-01:~# su - newuser newuser@server-01:~$
-
Use
sudo -i
to verify that the user account can elevate permissions. At the prompt, enter the new user’s password:newuser@server-01:~$ sudo -i [sudo] password for newuser: root@server-01:~#
-
Use
whoami
to verify that you are currently the root user:root@server-01:~# whoami root
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