As you may have already noticed, Ubuntu 11.10 comes with primarily two account types (Standard and Administrator) that you can choose from when adding new users. And if you want to add new or existing users to existing groups, it can be almost impossible to do from the user account management dialog box. So, this brief tutorial will show you how to quickly add existing users to existing groups in Ubuntu 11.10 using the command console.

Objectives:

• Add Existing Users to Existing Groups
• Enjoy!

To get started, press Ctrl – Alt – T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When Terminal opens, run the command below to show all existing groups on your system.

groupmod <PRESS TAB KEY> 2 times

Take notes of the current groups that are available on your system. To add an existing user to an existing group listed, run the command below:

sudo usermod -a -G GROUPNAME USERNAME

Replace <Groupname> with active group name and <Username> with an account name.

To verify, run the command below:

cat /etc/group

The username should appear on all groups the user is a member.

If you want to add a user called <richard> to a group named <sudo> run the command below:

sudo usermod -a -G sudo richard

Enjoy!