The sudo command is used to allow users to run programs with administrative privileges. The sudo stands for Super User DO. Sudo command temporarily elevates the privileges of a normal user for administrative tasks.
In today’s tutorial, we will learn how to create a new user with sudo privileges on CentOS. With a sudo user, we can perform administrative tasks on a Linux machine without the need to log n as the root user.
Creating Sudo User
CentOS 7 has a user group known as the wheel. All members of the wheel group are allowed to use the sudo command on CentOS. If you want to allow sudo privileges for an existing user, you need to add the user to the wheel group.
Follow the below steps to create a sudo user on the CentOS server.
Log into your server
Use the SSH command to log into the server with the root user.
ssh root@server_ip
Create a new user
Create a new user with the help of the useradd command.
useradd new_user
Set the password for the new user
Use the passed command to set a strong password for the newly created user.
passwd new_user
Adding the new user to the sudo group
Run the following command to add the newly created user to the sudo group, to grant sudo access.
usermod -aG wheel new_user
Alternative: Add User to Sudoers Configuration File
Open the Sudoers File in an Editor
Run the following command on the terminal to open the /etc/sudoers file in a text editor.
visudo
Add the New User to file
In the sudoers file, add the following lines.
new_user ALL=(ALL) ALL
Replace new_user with your newly created username. After adding the user, the sudoers file will look like this.
Test Sudo Privileges for the User Account
Run the following command to switch to the newly created user.
su - new_user
It will ask for the password, Enter the password and press the Enter button.
Run the following command to list the contents of the “/” parent directory.
sudo ls -al /
Conclusion
In today’s tutorial, we have learned how we can create a new user and assign the sudo privileges to the new user as well as to the existing user. Sudo command allows normal users to run programs with administrative privileges.
If you guys have any queries or questions, let me know in the comments section.