How to add a new user and add them as Sudoer

To add a user, set a password for that user, and grant them sudo privileges on a Linux system, follow the steps below. For this tutorial, let’s assume you’re adding a user named “newuser”.

1. Add a User: First, you’ll need to open a terminal and gain superuser privileges. Typically, you would do this by entering sudo su or just prefixing the following commands with sudo. Add the user with the following command:

adduser newuser

This command will prompt you to set a password and other optional details for the user.

2. Set/Change Password: If you need to reset or change the password for the user at a later time, you can use the following command:

passwd newuser

You’ll be prompted to enter the new password twice for confirmation.

3. Add User to sudoers: For a user to be able to execute commands as the superuser, they need to be added to the sudo group (on many modern Linux distributions) or be explicitly listed in the /etc/sudoers file. Here’s how to do both:

Add user to the sudo group (preferred method for systems where the sudo group exists):

usermod -aG sudo newuser

Directly edit the /etc/sudoers file: It’s advised to use the visudo command to edit the sudoers file as it checks for syntax errors:

visudo

Once inside the editor, you can add the following line to grant the user full sudo privileges:

newuser ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

After adding the line, save and exit the editor. If you’re unfamiliar with the vi editor that visudo defaults to, remember to press i to enter insert mode, make your changes, then press Esc followed by :wq and Enter to save and quit.