UserDrake: Managing Users on Your System

Abstract

userdrake is an advanced tool for Mandrake Linux which allows the system administrator to easily add users to the system, to remove others, to arrange users in groups, and to manage user groups in the same manner.

We will only focus on users here. Group management is very similar.

The Interface

Launching userdrake will display the main window (Figure 6.10), which lists the users currently defined on the system. You can switch from users to groups while accessing the Settings->View groups sub-menu.

Figure 6.10. The Users List in userdrake

The Users List in userdrake

The topology of the window is standard, the three buttons Add, Edit and Remove are also accessible from the Actions menu.

You can make as many changes as you wish. Changes will take effect on your user database only after pressing the Save button. You can go back to the current users database at any time by accessing the File->Reload menu item.

Adding a New User

We created the standard user Queen Pingusa at installation time, and now we want to create a new user called Peter Pingus, and then make them both members of the cdwriter group, so that they could use the CD burner without knowing the root password (for high security levels).

Click on the Add button, the dialog box to add a new user will pop up (Figure 6.11). The only field required is the login. You can also choose to add a comment. Generally, this is the full name of the user.

Figure 6.11. Adding a New User in The System

Adding a New User in The System

We now have two users in our list. Select both of them with your mouse (clicking the first one, and moving the cursor to the second one without releasing the button), and click on the Edit button. The following dialog box (Figure 6.12) shows the list of available groups on the right hand side, and the list of groups the selected users are members of. Look for the cdwriter group on the right, highlight it by clicking on it and click the Add button between the two lists.

Figure 6.12. Affect Users to a Group

Affect Users to a Group

Note

All dialogs under userdrake have a little text zone just above the buttons. It gives you a hint on what to do in the dialog, and warns you if you choose something ambiguous or which is not allowed.

After clicking OK, you can check in the users list that the last field (Groups) contains the cdwriter group.

Advanced Settings

The parameters dialog (Figure 6.13) accessible through Settings->Preferences allows you to control default user parameters, tune the way lists are displayed and some other options.

Figure 6.13. userdrake's Parameters Window

userdrake's Parameters Window

The window is made up of three tabs. The first one is used to set default parameters for new users being added through userdrake. Activating Edit accounts on a LDAP directory check-box will switch users edition from the local database to an LDAP server. However, you will have to configure the LDAP server first (Section , “LDAP support”).

The Activate autologin support check-box is used to bypass the graphical login step after booting the computer, and allows a specific user to be automatically logged in, without having to authenticate. This is useful if you are the only user on your system and you have no fear that other people will use your computer and view your files. Once the box is checked, select the user you want to auto-login, and choose the desktop manager to use in Actions+User autologin.

The following Users view tab (Figure 6.14) allows you to select the fields to display in the users list. Simply deactivate the check box associated to the fields you are not interested in. The aim of the Groups view tab is similar to the previous one but concerns the groups list.

Figure 6.14. userdrake's User View Parameters

userdrake's User View Parameters

Note

When you select various users and click the Edit button, the groups to which they belong may be different so the display will be slightly different (Figure 6.15): in that case, only the user Peter is a member of the audio group, then the audio item appears in light gray in both lists.

Note

Users whose UID is less than 500 are the virtual users reserved for the system and are not valid for real users. You can choose to display them by unchecking the Don't show user with id less than 500 option.

Figure 6.15. Groups Are Different For Two Users

Groups Are Different For Two Users

LDAP support

userdrake allows you to edit not only the local database of users, but also a one hosted on an LDAP server. You will first have to select an LDAP directory. To do so, go to Settings->Ldap Server.

Figure 6.16. Configuring Userdrake to Edit an LDAP Base

Configuring Userdrake to Edit an LDAP Base

In the dialog box that appears, fill in all fields according to the database you wish to edit. You can then click the Test button to make sure parameters are correct, then Validate.

Then simply switch from using the local database to using the LDAP base (Figure 6.13).