HP-UX System Administrator's Guide: Configuration Management

4 Configuring Users and Groups
You can control who has access to your system, its files, and its processes.
Authorized users gain access to the system by supplying a valid user name (login name)
and password. Each user is defined by an entry in the file/etc/passwd. You can use
HP SMH to add, remove, deactivate, reactivate, or modify a user account.
For additional information about passwords, refer to passwd(4) and passwd(1). To
manually change user account entries, use the /usr/sbin/vipw command to edit
/etc/passwd; see vipw(1M) for details.
For security information, see the HP-UX System Administrator’s Guide: Security
Management.
You can add a user in several ways:
• “Adding a User with Text-Based HP SMH” (page 50).
• “Manually Adding a User” (page 61).
• “Automating the Process of Adding a User” (page 60).
Consider performing the following tasks for your new user:
• Add a user to a group. See “Defining Group Membership” (page 67).
• Add a user to mail distribution lists.
• Add a user to disk quota systems.
• Allow user to log in from other systems without a password. See “$HOME/.rhosts
File” (page 72).
• Mount remote directories using NFS. See “Configuring the Network File System
(NFS)” (page 75).
• Give remote access to a user. See “Allowing Access from Remote Systems”
(page 72).
• Set up the user’s login environment. See “Customizing System-Wide and User
Login Environments” (page 42).
• Test the new account.
Configuring Users and Groups with HP SMH
To add a user, perform the following tasks:
□ Ensure that the user has a unique UID.
□ Insert a line for the user in the /etc/passwd file.
□ Make a home directory for the user.
□ Create an environment for the user.
Configuring Users and Groups with HP SMH 49