Linux Essentials

CHAPTER 13

Understanding Users and Groups

Linux is a multi-user OS, meaning that it provides features to help multiple individuals use the computer. Collectively, these features constitute accounts. Previous chapters of this book have referred to accounts in passing but haven't covered them in detail. This chapter changes that; it describes important account principles and a few commands you can use to begin investigating accounts. Related to accounts are groups, which are collections of accounts that can be given special permissions on the computer, so this chapter also describes groups. One account, known as root, has special privileges on the computer. You use this account to perform most system administration tasks, so you should understand ...