A user account is an access authorization to a restricted IT system. It consists mostly of a system wide unique user name an a password which are needed for authentication. IT systems use the user account to identify the individual user and grant him permissions which are associated with the user account.
Questions tagged [user-accounts]
497 questions
16
votes
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When should I create a new user account to run software on a server?
In general, when should one create a new user account to run a piece of internet-facing software on a server?
For instance, suppose I'm using a shared Debian server (e.g. via Dreamhost) and I want to run some websites using WordPress, some using…
user61015
14
votes
1 answer
Domain Administrators account policy (After PCI audit)
One of our clients is a Tier 1 PCI company, and their auditors have made a suggestion with regards to us as System Administrators and our access rights.
We administer their entirely Windows based infrastructure of roughly 700 Desktops/80 servers/10…

Patrick
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4 answers
How to find all ways in which a Unix user account is locked
I occasionally find myself in a situation where an undermaintained system has an account that's been locked out. The problem is that there are a variety of ways in which an account can be locked out, each with their own method of being…

wfaulk
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13
votes
2 answers
Why limit maximum username length to 8 characters?
Throughout my humble career in IT I generally see username length limited (typically to 8 characters). This occurs on a variety of systems including Active Directory and database apps.
Is there a reason for this? Is there best practices with…

Geordan
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How to create linux account with useradd without creating mail spool
Summary
Can I create a new user without creating mail spool and without modification of /etc/default/useradd ?
Explaination
I want to create a user that has a home directory and skeletion, but I don't want the useradd script to add a mail spool file…

drinchev
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4 answers
Can you find out when a new user was created in Active Directory on Windows 2003 Server?
As the question title says, I am trying to find out when a user account was created in Active Directory. The operating system is Windows Server 2003.

heisenberg
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Why am I getting unauthorized errors with Powershell get-winevent?
I'm a domain admin equivalent, I've tried running in an elevated console (right-click> run as administrator), and I'm consistently getting errors when executing
get-winevent -logname application | where {$_.message -match "Faulting application"} |…

user209162
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How to find the creation date of a local user account?
I would like to get the creation date of a local user account (Win 7 if it matters). I've looked at the following WMI objects (and google of course):
Win32_UserAccount
Win32_NetworkLoginProfile
The objects returned from NetworkLoginProfile have the…

MDMoore313
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10
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Can a user account that is disabled in Active Directory still receive email?
I'm reading Learning Exchange Server 2003 by Boswell, and there's a section in there that mentions that a disabled account in AD cannot receive email and that it will be bounced back. Currently, what usually happens when a person leaves our company…

Bigbio2002
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9
votes
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User name before sudo
I got a script requiring sudo, but the script must set parameters according to the original user, such as:
chown "${USER}:${USER}" dir
If I set it under sudo, I just end up with chmod root:root, which doesn't help.
So how can I get the user name…

Bite code
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9
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2 answers
NetworkService account access to a shared folder (WinSrv 2012R2)
We have services running under IIS with pool setup to run under NetworkService identity. If the service required access to a shared folder on a remote server, on previous versions of WinServer we just added the "ServerA$" account to the list of user…

veljkoz
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Unable to delete a user from a Linux CentOS 6.3 machine, what can be done?
When I try deleting my user (from a root shell) it says userdel: cannot remove entry 'itaig' from /etc/passwd
The user isn't even displayed on /etc/passwd.
[root@ab2c1 ~]# su - itaig
su: warning: cannot change directory to /home/itaig: No such file…

Itai Ganot
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7 answers
How can I automate clearing and resetting a Linux user's home directory to a default?
I'm helping to teach two Unix courses next week. Users will be granted an account on a RHEL 5 machine, during which time they'll add files to their /home folder, update their .bashrc and other dotfiles, and perform other general messiness that needs…

matthewsteele
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Can a Windows Active Directory user have aliases?
I've just created a simple AD on our Windows 2008 r2 server. I've added a few employees into that directory.
Now, is it possible to create some aliases for a single account.
eg.
name = foo.bar@contoso.internal / contoso\foo.bar
but the user can also…

Pure.Krome
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When would you use the "password never expires" option?
I'm simply wondering when you should set a user account so that the password never expires. On what accounts is this a good idea?

Charkel
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