Creating and Maintaining User Accounts

Anyone cannot log on to a Linux machine. An account must be created for each user and — you guessed it — no one but the system administrator may do this. That’s simple enough.
But there are  decisions that either you or your company must make. You might want  users to select their own passwords, which would be easier for them to remember, but which probably would be easier for an external factor to crack. You might assign passwords, which is more secure in theory but which increases the chances that users will write them down on a conveniently located scrap of paper — a risk if many people have access to the area where the machine(s) is located. You might want that users must change their passwords periodically, and you can configure Red Hat Linux to prompt users to do so.
  
And what to do about old accounts? Perhaps someone has left the company. What happens to his or her account? You probably don’t want him or her to continue to have access to the company network. On the other hand, you don’t want to simply delete the account, because it might contain some essential data which is reside nowhere else.

 There are aspects of your business that make World Wide Web access desirable, but you don’t want user"s spending their working hours surfing the Web.

The following issues and others are parts of the system administrator’s duties in managing user accounts. The administrator or his employer must establish the policies governing them— if in an enterprise, preferably in writing — for the protection of all concerned.


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