Managing UNIX groups#

The group include list#

By default Plasma users don’t have access to any environments.

Users must be assigned to UNIX groups, and included groups be defined in the Plasma configuration.

Unix groups are defined in the config file users-config.yml already used for users creation (see Using the users playbook).

plasma_groups:
    - python-course
    - bash-intro

To add these groups into allowed groups to access environments, execute the ansible/include-groups.yml playbook:

cd ansible/
ansible-playbook include-groups.yml -i hosts -u ubuntu -e @users-config.yml

The playbook creates the groups on the host machine if they don’t already exist, and defines the list of included groups in the TLJH config.

Managing user groups via the command line#

To create a new group test:

groupadd test

To add a user alice to the test group:

usermod -a -G test alice

To remove the user alice from the test group:

deluser alice test

Groups can be listed using the following command:

$ cat /etc/group
root:x:0:
daemon:x:1:
bin:x:2:
sys:x:3:
adm:x:4:syslog,ubuntu
tty:x:5:
disk:x:6:
lp:x:7:
mail:x:8:
...

There are also plenty of good resources online to learn more about UNIX user and groups management.