When installing CentOS Stream, the user account created during the initial setup has sudo rights if you selected the user to be an admin and create a root account. However, there may be a need to add additional sudo users or to remove the access. This is a straightforward process with a few commands.
In the following tutorial, you will learn to add a user to the sudoers group on any CentOS Stream distribution.
Table of Contents
Prerequisites
- Recommended OS: Any current CentOS Stream
- User account: root access
Updating Operating System
Update your CentOS Stream operating system to make sure all existing packages are up to date:
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh -yChanging to Root (su)
To create new sudo users, you will need to switch to root using the su command. By default, this should have been set when installing CentOS Stream if you have forgotten the root password, while in sudo mode, you can reset it as follows.
sudo passwd rootNext, you will be prompted to enter your password for your sudo account, then once verified, enter a new root password.
Example output:
Now that your root password has been set, switch to root using the following command su:
suYou will be prompted for the root password. Once entered, you will see the username has changed to root.
Example:
Create and User Account
The first step is learning how to add a new user account. Ideally, you can grant permission to an existing account, but you will learn to add a user from scratch for the tutorial.
First, create the user account <example username>, replacing the example with the user name you want to add.
sudo adduser <example username>Example:
sudo adduser joshNext, you will need to set the password for the user name just added.
In the tutorial example, this username is “josh.”
sudo passwd joshExample:
Add New User To Sudoers Group
In the next part of the tutorial, now that you have learned how to add a user, you can give the new user that you named or an existing username sudoers access by typing the following command:
sudo usermod -aG wheel <example username>Example using our name we created:
sudo usermod -aG wheel joshIt is a good idea to check if the username was successfully added to the sudoers group. To do this, run the id command:
id <username>Example using our name we created:
id joshExample output:
An alternative is to use the gpasswd command as follows:
gpasswd -a <example username> wheelExample using our name we created:
gpasswd -a josh wheelExample output:
Adding user josh to group wheelConfirm & Test New Sudo User
Now that you have successfully added the user you wanted to have sudo access to, it is time to test the account. This can be done again by using the su command but by adding the username along with the command.
Login to sudo user as follows:
su <example username>Example using our name we created:
su joshNow, confirm the username with the sudo command along with whoami:
sudo whoamiYou will then be prompted to type in the sudo username you are using and its password. Once entered and confirmed, you will see the following output:
Congratulations, you have added a new username to the sudoers group.
Comments and Conclusion
In the tutorial, you have learned how to add users to your CentOS Stream operating system and add sudo permissions. Overall, this tutorial should work for all current versions of CentOS Stream that are supported and is recommended only to give permissions to trusted users as they will have access to sensitive files with the permit provided by sudo.
