How to Manage Groups using Gpasswd Command

The gpasswd command is used in linux to remove user from group, add users to group, list group members and set password for a group. Gpasswd command alters '/etc/group' and '/etc/gshadow' files in Linux.

In this tutorial we learn how to manage Linux groups using gpasswd command.

Gpasswd Command Syntax

Lets check the syntax for gpasswd command and its options.

gpasswd [options] group

-a, --add user Add the user to the named group.
-d, --delete user Remove the user from the named group.
-A, --administrators user,... Set the list of administrative users.
-M, --members user,... Set the list of group members.

Add a User to a group using gpasswd comand

Let check how to add a 'user1' to a group  'sales'

$ gpasswd -a user1 sales

Add multiple user to a group

To add multiple users to sales group following below command:

$ gpasswd -M user1,user2,user3 sales

Remove a user from group

We can use -d option to remove a user from a group.

Following command will remove user 'user2' from the  'sales' group.

$ gpasswd -d user2 sales

Set a user as group administrator

We use -A option to set a user as group administrator.

The following example set 'user1' and 'user2' as the group admin for 'sales' group.

$ gpasswd -A user1,user2 sales

or

$ gpasswd -A user1 linuxgroup

Set password for a group

Its very rare we use group password but I like to show you that there is an option for it.

$ gpasswd linuxgroup

Changing the password for group linuxgroup

New Password:

Re-enter new password:

Conclusion

In this tutorial we learned how to use gpasswd command to manage Linux groups. I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and please leave your suggestions in the below comment section.