Adding New Users in Backtrack 5

Did you happen to know how to add or create new user in BackTrack 5 and why you have to do that? The ultimate reason of creating new user with lesser privileges than root is because of security concern.

With default installation of BackTrack 5 R1, you will find there is only one user created in the operating system; root (or SuperUser). It is very dangerous for us to run as root because root has full privileges in the operating system.

If you logged in as a root, your system is more vulnerable to external attacks. In root account, ones can manage other user’s account, administer user data, installing new applications, configure system services and others. You also can end up with destroying your own operating system if you messed up with the root account.

So, it is more practical to login as normal user and use sudo when it is necessary.

To create a new user, you can user command (a) adduser or (b) useradd. Both command will do create new user account in BackTrack 5 R1 (Tested with the Gnome version).

Code:

adduser  [options]  [--home  DIR]  [--shell  SHELL]  [--no-create-home]
       [--uid ID] [--firstuid ID] [--lastuid ID] [--ingroup GROUP | --gid  ID]
       [--disabled-password]      [--disabled-login]      [--gecos      GECOS]
       [--add_extra_groups] [--encrypt-home] <your username>

Example:

adduser userOne

If you are executing line such as the example above, userOne will be created as a normal user. For more details, you can type man adduser. I hope this post will help you guys in exploring Linux, especially in BackTrack 5 R1.