Archive:Docs/Drafts/AdministrationGuide/UserAccounts/Introduction

= User Accounts =

Introduction
Creation and management of users and user groups is a fundamental practice of system administration on multi-user systems such as Linux. The user accounts system provides a method to distinguish between different users and accounts. Each user can be assigned a separate and secure storage area for files and preferences. This system gives users the ability to customize their working environment according to their needs.

Fedora includes two types of accounts - system and non-system accounts. System accounts include the root user and others such as the   user. System accounts are created during the installation process and used by various system daemons and utilities to perform system-wide tasks. Fedora reserves the first 499 UIDs for system accounts. This is why they are sometimes reffered to as low ID accounts.

Non-system accounts start from uid 500. These accounts are used for regular users to perform day-to-day tasks. Usually, the first "normal" user account is created during the first boot following the system's installation. After that, user and group accounts can be created with standard procedures, explained later in this guide.

Ways to Create and Modify User and Group Accounts
As with most other tasks, system administrator can chose between two ways of creating and subsequently modifying user accounts:


 * Command line interface
 * Graphical interface

The account creation process is explained on the next page.