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Wayne Koorts
Asked: 2009-05-23 15:55:33 +0800 CST

Default groups assigned to the first user in Ubuntu Server 8.04?

  • 772

I just made a silly mistake on my Ubuntu Server box: I added myself to a group using usermod -G, after which I discovered the -a option...

The result is that I am now out of the admin group, and lost my sudo rights. I can sort that out, but I want to know what other groups I may been removed from? My user was the first one so what I'm looking for is a list of groups that the first user gets added to at installation time.

ubuntu user-management groups usermod

6 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Michael's answer was the closest, but I wanted to be sure, so I installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu Server 8.04.2 (Hardy Heron) in a virtual machine to get the official group list. The installation was a basic one with no specific server roles selected. These are the first groups, assigned by default, to the first user:

    • $USERNAME (e.g. wayne) (primary group - the rest are supplementary groups)
    • adm
    • dialout
    • cdrom
    • floppy
    • fuse
    • audio
    • dip
    • video
    • plugdev
    • sambashare
    • lpadmin
    • admin

    To assign these groups to a given user, issue the following command:

    sudo usermod -a -G adm,dialout,cdrom,floppy,audio,dip,fuse,video,plugdev,scanner,sambashare,lpadmin,admin

    The -a switch means "append" so that existing supplementary groups are not overwritten.

    To get a list of groups assigned to a particular user:

    cat /etc/group | grep <username>

    or for the current user:

    groups
    • 15

  2. From here, the default groups for the first user on an Ubuntu box are:

    • $USERNAME (Primary)
    • adm
    • dialout
    • cdrom
    • floppy
    • audio
    • dip
    • video
    • plugdev
    • scanner
    • netdev
    • lpadmin
    • powerdev
    • admin
    • 4

  3. For Ubuntu 14.04 LTS:

    $USERNAME adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare

    • 2

  4. The default group should be the same as the user name. So if you created user1, his default group would be user1.

    [Edit]

    Here you have an explanation of the group memberships.

    • 1

  5. Ubuntu Server 9.10 (samba, openssh instaled)

    $username, adm, dialout, cdrom, plugdev, sambashare, lpadmin, admin

    • 1

  6. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:

    $USERNAME adm disk cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare

    • 1