Multiple users on one machine

[rboleyn]

I have installed Mandriva 2007 on our home computer and set everything up. All is fine but I still have one major setback. I have 3 people who share the system. Each one has their own home and login. I want to allow each to also share a common folder to avoid duplication of files such as photos and music. Is this possible and how? Thanks all.

[pavlo_7]

Sure it's possible. You can create directory which would be shared
by a group of users. Those users, however, will have full control (change permissions) over the files they create and own, but not someone else's files.
For example:

As "root", create a directory in /media and call it "common":

su - root
cd /media
mkdir common

and make that directory owned by group "users":

chgrp users common

then, give rwx (read, write, and execute} permissions on that directory to it's group of users:

chmod 775 common

now, add each trusted user to the group "users":

adduser user1 users
adduser user2 users
adduser user3 users

Finally, log in as each user and test it by going to that directory and creating some files:

su - user1
cd /media/common
touch file_from_user1
ls -l

as you can see, that file is owned by "user1" and is created with following permissions (if user1's umask is set to 0022, which should be by deafult):

-rw-r--r--

It means, that "user1" has rw- (read write, but not execute permissions), and "group" and "others" users only have r-- (read, no write, and no execute) permissions. Those permissions will be set the same way for files created by other users and will be owned by those users.

Now, you may say: " ... but other users cannot modify or execute my files". Well, the answer to it is this:

If I create a file, by default, I do not want anybody to mess with it until I say so (I am the owner ! ).

So, you give other people certain permissions to your files later. For example:

chmod g+w file_from_user1

will give the group of trusted users "write" permission to the file. And:

chmod g+x file_from_user1

will give the group of trusted users "execute" permission to that file.
You can also change permissions this way:

chmod 774 file_from_user1

which will give "rwx" to the owner and the group, and r-- permission to "others".

Hope this helps.

Good luck, and don't give too many permissions to "others"!

[rboleyn]

I have set up the directory, moved all of the files in and was able to access but every time I log out and log in or run system update it resets user to Root, groups to admin and permissions to default???? Any ideas?

[pavlo_7]

I have set up the directory, moved all of the files in and was able to access but every time I log out and log in or run system update it resets user to Root, groups to admin and permissions to default???? Any ideas?

This shouldn't happen. Permissions and ownership of the files should remain the same no matter who you log in as. I'm thinking that this may be some nasty bug or stupid feature in the OS, or files are on an external USB drive. I've never used Mandriva myself, so maybe someone else on the forums who uses Mandriva knows about it and will reply

[kashif_max]

This command is intended to be used in a large system environment where many accounts are needed. Since username and passwords are stored in clear text format make sure only root can read/write the file. Use chmod command:

# touch /root/user-add.txt
# chmod 0600 /root/batch-user-add.txt

Create a user list as follows. Open file:
# vi /root/batch-user-add.txt

Append username and password:
kashifassword:1001:513:Student Account:/home/kashif:/bin/bash
Asimassword:1002:513:Employee:/home/Asim:/bin/bash

Now create users in batch:
# newusers /root/user-add.txt

Read man page of newusers for more information.