Create Users and Manage sudo Access on Your VPS

Running everything as root is convenient and dangerous. A single typo can wipe your server, and any process you launch inherits full system privileges. The standard practice is to create a regular user, grant it sudo, and use root only when you really need to.

Create a new user

Add the user

sudo adduser alice

You will be prompted for a password and some optional profile fields (press Enter to skip).

Grant sudo privileges

sudo usermod -aG sudo alice

Test the new account

su - alice
sudo whoami   # should print: root

Set up SSH key access for the new user

sudo mkdir -p /home/alice/.ssh
sudo nano /home/alice/.ssh/authorized_keys
# Paste the public key, save, and exit

sudo chmod 700 /home/alice/.ssh
sudo chmod 600 /home/alice/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo chown -R alice:alice /home/alice/.ssh

See SSH Access for how to generate a key pair. Once your new user works over SSH, disable direct root login to reduce brute-force risk.

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Set:

PermitRootLogin no

Then reload SSH:

sudo systemctl reload ssh

Do not close your current root SSH session until you have confirmed you can log in as your new sudo user in a separate terminal. If something is misconfigured, that first session is your escape hatch.

Delete a user

# Delete user but keep their home directory
sudo deluser alice

# Delete user and their home directory
sudo deluser --remove-home alice

List all users

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

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Create Users and Manage sudo Access on Your VPS

Create a new user

Set up SSH key access for the new user

Delete a user

List all users

​Create a new user

​Set up SSH key access for the new user

​Disable root SSH login

​Delete a user

​List all users

Create a new user

Set up SSH key access for the new user

Disable root SSH login

Delete a user

List all users