groupadd : Managing Groups from the Command Line

Managing Groups from the Command Line 


groupadd 

As you can probably guess from its name, the groupadd utility is used to add 
groups to your Linux system. The syntax for using groupadd at the shell prompt is relatively
simple. Just enter


groupadd options groupname 


For example, if I wanted to add a group named dbusers, I would enter


groupadd dbusers


at the shell prompt.

When I do, a group is added to 


/etc/group 


using default parameters specified in 


/etc/login.defs


When using groupadd, you can override the defaults in

/etc/login.defs 

and customize the way the group is created using the following options:


• –g 
   Specifies a GID for the new group.



• –p 
   Specifies a password for the group. Just as with the useradd command, you must use
   the

   openssl passwd –crypt 

   command to first encrypt the password you want to use with the –p option of groupadd.


• –r 
   Specifies that the group being created is a system group.




LX0-104 Exam Objectives (K)