4.1 USER ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

User account management is, if not the most important job of a system administrator, certainly one of the most visible. An individual's log-in account defines the overall system to the user. When the system administrator configures the log-in environment appropriately by determining the PATH, setting an informative shell prompt, defining helpful aliases and any necessary environment variables, and assigning group membership, the user can immediately become productive.

Actually, creating user accounts and the subsequent removal or retirement of user accounts is just the beginning, and end, of user account management. In between is the ongoing day-to-day support of your user community. This includes account modifications, such as resetting passwords and adjusting group memberships, ensuring that users are aware of upcoming system changes or outages, and managing security to allow the users to get their work done while protecting the system from accidental or intentional harm. Behind the scenes, the administrator should define and assign user and group IDs (UIDs and GIDs) to avoid collisions, create appropriate default account "dot" files, create and monitor home directory file system (s), and a variety of other mundane and not so mundane tasks that are necessary for the smooth operation of a Digital UNIX system.

This chapter covers the details of adding and removing user accounts and addresses other aspects of user account management. In addition, some administrative strategies to be aware of are presented.

4.2 BASE SECURITY VS. ENHANCED SECURITY

Before moving onto the particulars of user account management...