Linux — adduser Command

What is adduser Command

The adduser command in Linux is used to create a new user account. It’s a user-friendly utility that automates the process of creating a new user, setting up their home directory, copying initial configuration files to it, and more.

The adduser command has its roots in the fundamental need for multi-user systems to be able to create and manage multiple user accounts. The ability to create new users is essential in such systems for security, resource allocation, and system organization purposes.

A brief history of adduser command:

• Unix: The concept of user accounts was present in Unix from its inception in the 1970s. The original Unix adduser script was a simple tool for adding new users to the /etc/passwd file, which stores user information.
• Linux: When Linux was developed in the early 1990s as a Unix-like system, it also needed the ability to manage user accounts. This led to the creation of the useradd command, which is included in the Linux shadow password suite, and is a low-level utility for adding users.
• adduser: Many Linux distributions found that useradd, while powerful, was not very user-friendly, so they introduced adduser as a higher-level, more user-friendly alternative. In many distributions, adduser is a more intuitive…