Modifying a user on Linux can be easily done on command line using usermod. These are some scenarios and handy commands to modify a user on Linux. We’ll use Ubuntu for the purpose of this tutorial.
usermod – modify password
To create a password you can use:
$ openssl passwd -1 somepassword $1$KNO15fOz$xMef3ieizYZmKrbhK1IAR/
To modify password
//sudo usermod -p ENCRYPTED_PASSWORD_AS_RETURNED_BY_CRYPT user2 $ sudo usermod -p "$1$KNO15fOz$xMef3ieizYZmKrbhK1IAR/" user2
To validate the password we can check if the same encrypted password is present in /etc/shadow.
$ sudo cat /etc/shadow | grep user2 user2:$1$KNO15fOz$xMef3ieizYZmKrbhK1IAR/:16767:0:99999:7:::
usermod – modify group
$ sudo usermod -g groupid_or_groupname user2
usermod – change login shell
$ sudo usermod -s /bin/bash user2
usermod – change home directory
To change home directory
$ sudo usermod --home /home/user2 user2
If the -m option is given, the contents of the current home directory will be moved to the new home directory, which is created if it does not already exist.
