How To Create a Sudo User on CentOS

The sudo command is designed to allow users to run programs with the security privileges of another user, by default the root user.

In this guide, we will show you how to create a new user with sudo privileges on CentOS. You can use the sudo user to perform administrative tasks on your CentOS machine without a need to logging in as the root user.

Creating Sudo User #

By default on CentOS, users in the group wheel are granted with sudo access. If you want to configure sudo for an existing user, just add your user to the wheel group, as shown in step 4.

Follow the steps below to create a sudo user on your CentOS server:

1. Log in to your server #

Start by logging in to your CentOS server via ssh as the root user:

ssh root@server_ip_address

2. Create a new user account #

Create a new user account using the useradd command:

useradd username

Replace username with the user name that you want to create.

3. Set the user password #

Run the passwd command to set a password for the new user:

passwd username

You will be prompted to confirm the password. Make sure you use a strong password.

Changing password for user username.
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

4. Add the new user to the sudo group #

By default on CentOS systems, members of the group wheel are granted with sudo access. Add the new user to the wheel group:

usermod -aG wheel username

How to use Sudo #

Switch to the newly created user:

su - username

To use sudo, simply prefix the command with sudo and space.

sudo [COMMAND]

For example, to list the contents of the /root directory you would use:

sudo ls -l /root

The first time you use sudo from this account, you will see the following banner message and you will be prompted to enter the password for the user account.

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.
    #2) Think before you type.
    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

[sudo] password for username:

Conclusion #

That’s all. You have successfully created a sudo user on your CentOS system. You can now use this user to perform administrative tasks on your server.

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.