Chapter 14. Users and Basic Account Management

Contributed by Neil Blakey-Milner.
Table of Contents
14.1. Synopsis
14.2. Introduction
14.3. Modifying Accounts
14.4. Limiting Users
14.5. Groups
14.6. Becoming Superuser

14.1. Synopsis

FreeBSD allows multiple users to use the computer at the same time. While only one user can sit in front of the screen and use the keyboard at any one time, any number of users can log in to the system through the network. To use the system, every user must have a user account.

After reading this chapter, you will know:

  • The differences between the various user accounts on a FreeBSD system.

  • How to add and remove user accounts.

  • How to change account details, such as the user's full name or preferred shell.

  • How to set limits on a per-account basis to control the resources, such as memory and CPU time, that accounts and groups of accounts are allowed to access.

  • How to use groups to make account management easier.

Before reading this chapter, you should:

All FreeBSD documents are available for download at http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/

Questions that are not answered by the documentation may be sent to <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>.

Send questions about this document to <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org>.