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usermod — change an account and its groups

cheat sheet · Ubuntu 24.04 · shadow 4.13 https://lab.dimsanych.ru/en/wiki/usermod/

Cheat sheet

sudo usermod -aG adm alice add a user to a group, keep others
sudo usermod -rG adm alice remove from a group (or gpasswd -d)
sudo usermod -G adm,www-data alice set the whole group list anew
sudo usermod -g devs alice change the primary group
sudo usermod -s /bin/bash alice login shell
sudo usermod -s /usr/sbin/nologin svc forbid login
sudo usermod -L alice lock the password; -U unlocks
sudo usermod -e 2026-12-31 alice the date the account expires
sudo usermod -d /home/al -m alice move the home directory
id alice check the result

Options

Full list — man usermod. gpasswd options: -a add, -d remove, -M set the group's member list.