Red Hat 8.1 - Manage User Accounts

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This tutorial will help you on how to perform user account management, enable quota and set user quota on linux server.

1. Add User

Syntax: useradd username

Example: useradd redhat

In above example, we are creating a user called redhat. This command will create a user home directory under /home/ path with redhat user/group permission as shown below.

Set User Password

Syntax: passwd username

Example: passwd redhat

passwd command is used to set or change the password for existing linux user account.

2. Delete User

Syntax: userdel username

Example: userdel redhat

This command will delete only a redhat user account not a home directory data.

Delete User with Home Directory

Syntax: userdel -r username

Example: userdel -r redhat

This command will delete a redhat user account and its home directory(/home/redhat/).

If you didn't use -r then delete a user home directory manually using rm -rf command mentioned below:

rm -rf /home/redhat/

The above command will delete your entire home directory and we cannot restore it back. So before executing rm -rf command make sure you have taken a backup of required files.

3. Enable User Quota

To enable a user quota, follow the below steps:

Step:1 Edit fstab file using vim editor. Add usrquota & grpquota on /home mount point line after the defaults with seperated by comma.

[root@worldwidelinux ]# vim /etc/fstab

Save and Close the file by pressing Esc key and type :wq! then press Enter key.

Step:2 Reboot your server to reflect the user quota allocation on /home mount point.

Step:3 Turn on quota for home file system

[root@worldwidelinux ]# quotaon -avug

Whereas:

-a : All automatically mounted non NFS filesystems in /etc/fstab with quotas will have their quotas turned on.

-v : Display a messfae for each filesystem where quotas are turned on.

-u : Manipulate user quotas.

-g : Manipulate group quotas.

Verify quota is turned on or not using below command:

[root@worldwidelinux ]# repquota -a

soft: Once soft limits reached, it will warn a users(Size should be in KB).

hard: Once hard limits reached, it will not allow users to create files(Size should be in KB).

4. Set User Quota

Syntax: edquota -u username

For example, set a redhat user quota soft as 786 MB and hard as 1024 MB.

[root@worldwidelinux ]# edquota -u redhat

Change value of soft limit value as 804864 and hard limit value as 1048576 in KB.

Save and Close the file by pressing Esc key and type :wq! then press Enter key.

Verify quota is allocated to user or not using below command:

Execute below command, to set a same existing user quota to new user, execute below command:

Syntax: edquota -p olduser newuser

For example, copy user redhat quota to redhat1 user.

[root@worldwidelinux ]# edquota -p redhat redhat1