The sudo
command provides a mechanism for granting administrator privileges — ordinarily only available to the root user — to normal users. This guide will show you how to create a new user with sudo
access on Ubuntu 18.04, without having to modify your server’s /etc/sudoers
file. If you want to configure sudo
for an existing user, skip to step 3.
SSH in to your server as the root user:
- ssh root@your_server_ip_address
Use the adduser
command to add a new user to your system:
- adduser sammy
Be sure to replace sammy
with the user name that you want to create. You will be prompted to create and verify a password for the user:
OutputEnter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Next you’ll be asked to fill in some information about the new user. It is fine to accept the defaults and leave all of this information blank:
OutputChanging the user information for sammy
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
Full Name []:
Room Number []:
Work Phone []:
Home Phone []:
Other []:
Is the information correct? [Y/n]
Use the usermod
command to add the user to the sudo group:
- usermod -aG sudo sammy
Again, be sure to replace sammy
with the username you just added. By default, on Ubuntu, all members of the sudo group have full sudo
privileges.
sudo
AccessTo test that the new sudo
permissions are working, first use the su
command to switch to the new user account:
- su - sammy
As the new user, verify that you can use sudo
by prepending sudo
to the command that you want to run with superuser privileges:
- sudo command_to_run
For example, you can list the contents of the /root
directory, which is normally only accessible to the root user:
- sudo ls -la /root
The first time you use sudo
in a session, you will be prompted for the password of that users account. Enter the password to proceed:
Output:[sudo] password for sammy:
Note: This is not asking for the root password! Enter the password of the sudo-enabled user, not a root password.
If your user is in the proper group and you entered the password correctly, the command that you issued with sudo
will run with root privileges.
In this quickstart tutorial we created a new user account and added it to the sudo group to enable sudo
access. For more detailed information on setting up an Ubuntu 18.04 server, please read our Initial Server Setup with Ubuntu 18.04 tutorial.
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How to enable SSH-key (password-less) access for the new user? There’s a version of that here, but not positive it’s optimal: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/secure-ubuntu-server-for-non-root-user-using-only-ssh-keys?answer=22286