User Accounts


  1.  Introduction

  The userconf system is a modular solution providing many mechanisms to
  ease management of user accounts. While userconf is an integral part
  (not a module) of the Linuxconf system, it cooperates with several
  other modules to automate/centralise various tasks.


  2.  Features


  2.1.  Fine grain privileges

  You can distribute various administrative privileges to ordinary
  users. For example, you can grant the ability to manage POP (email)
  accounts.


  2.2.  Co-managers

  When you edit a user account, other modules may join in the dialog
  layout and add various fields and validation. For example, the
  mailconf module inserts two sections to let you manage email related
  topics. So from a single place, you have access to:


  +o  User accounts details

  +o  Email aliases

  +o  Vacation settings

  +o  Disk quota settings

  Co-managers may work with group accounts as well. For now, only disk
  quotas are supported this way.


  2.3.  Password synchronisation

  The module sends the message "chgpasswd" to allow other modules to
  update of the user password in other format. The samba module does
  this to update the NT/SMB password.


  2.4.  Inter-module messaging

  userconf generates several messages to help automation. Here is a list
  (see "linuxconf --showmsgs" to learn about all inter-module messages)



          chggroup            group
          chgpasswd           user newpassword islocked domain
          chguser             user domain
          coadminauth         pseudo-user password
          coadminpriv         pseudo-user privilege*
          delgroup            group
          deluser             user domain
          editupass           domain
          newgroup            group
          newuser             user domain
          postdelgroup        group
          postdeluser         user domain



  2.5.  Related modules

  The following modules works in relation with userconf:


  +o  accountbatch: let you maintain the account database from another
     database.

  +o  diskquotaconf: Help maintain user and group disk quotas.

  +o  ldapconf: Help maintain an openldap server. It can hyjack userconf
     so it manages user accounts in LDAP transparently. Using a co-
     manager, userconf can manage extra fields (administrator defined)
     in LDAP.

  +o  mailconf: Beside configuring sendmail, it provides a co-manager to
     configure email settings of user accounts.

  +o  samba: Synchronise the NT/SMB passwords and accounts.

  +o  usersbygroup: Let you grant administrator privilege on members of
     specific groups (A teacher is allowed to managed user accounts of
     his student for example).


  3.  Command lines

  While userconf is not a module nor an independant utility, it is
  possible to reach the main userconf menu, simply by typing:



               userconf



  Type the following command to get the various command lines
  description:



               userconf --help



               --adduser userid group username shell
               --deluser userid [ --archive | --deldata | --keepdata]
               --addgroup group
               --delgroup group
               --help



  4.  Virtual registry

  You can control various aspects using the virtual registry. You can
  setup the various account policies using the acctpolicies.*
  variables. You can configure groups using the group.* variables and
  you can manage user accounts using the user.* variables.


  5.  Packaging/Location.

  Userconf is not a module (although it will be). It is included in the
  core linuxconf utility.


  6.  Author

  Userconf was written by Jacques Gelinas (jack@solucorp.qc.ca).