50
Chapter 5
Different Types of Users
As you know, in Linux, the root user is all-powerful. The root user can do
basically
anything on the system. Other users on the system have more lim-
ited capabilities and permissions and almost never have the access that the
root user has.
These other users are usually collected into
groups that generally share
a similar function. In a commercial entity, these groups might be finance,
engineering, sales, and so on. In an IT environment, these groups might
include developers, network administrators, and database administrators.
The idea is to put people with similar needs into a group that is granted
relevant permissions; then each member of the group inherits the group
permissions. This is primarily for the ease of administering permissions
and, thus, security.
The root user is part of the root group by default. Each new user on the
system must be added to a group in order to inherit the permissions of that
group.
