This article demonstrates how to set up and use a new user with sudo privilege and delete user on ubuntu 20.04

The sudo command provides a privilege to execute or run programs with the security privileges of another user (by default, as the root user). When we use sudo it will prompt for the password and confirms your request to execute a command by checking a file, called sudoers.

1. Create a new user

First, we have to log in to our server as the root user.

sudo -i

Then execute the adduser command to add a new user to the system.

For example, if we need to add a user “guide” to our system, we have to run

adduser guide

Please replace the user name “guide” with the user that you want to create.

  • This will ask for a new password for this account.
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully
  • Then we have to provide user information. It is not mandatory to provide values, We can leave all blank if we want.
Changing the user information for guide
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
        Full Name []:
        Room Number []:
        Work Phone []:
        Home Phone []:
        Other []:
Is the information correct? [Y/n] Y

2. Give sudo privilege to the user

Now we have to add the created user to the user group. Ubuntu group members have privileges. For that, we have to use the usermod command.

usermod -aG sudo guide

Now to verify the created user we will switch to the user and try to execute sudo commands. We can use the su command to switch between user accounts.

YOUR_SERVER# su - guide
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.
guide@YOUR_SERVER:~$

Run sudo -v It is usually used to extend your sudo password timeout but can be used for determining whether you have any sudo privileges.

  • It will ask for your password the first time to proceed.
guide@YOUR_SERVER:~$ sudo -v
[sudo] password for guide:

After you give the correct password command will run with the privilege of the sudo group.

3. Delete existing user

In this section we are going to delete the existing user there are several ways to delete ubuntu user. Here we talk about

  • Delete user without deleting any of user’s files
sudo deluser guide

Please replace the user name “guide” with the user that you want to delete.

  • Delete user with user’s home directory
sudo deluser --remove-home guide

Please replace the user name “guide” with the user that you want to delete.