# How do I manage user & groups?



## Sunnz (Apr 28, 2007)

Ok so I need to create a new group and add an existing user (myself) to this group.

This is how I usually do it on a nix box:
groupadd -g 8080 mygroup
usermod -G mygroup myuser

But I can't find these commands on OS X...

I tried looking at System Preference but can't find anything like this, how do I manage users & groups on OS X?


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## fryke (Apr 28, 2007)

NetInfo Manager?


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## Sunnz (Apr 28, 2007)

Hey thanks, NetInfo is... different!!


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## fryke (Apr 28, 2007)

I guess it's to freak out beginners.


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## Sunnz (Apr 28, 2007)

Well I don't know, it feels like regedit on M$, but got that nix touch in it....


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## bartcatz (May 5, 2007)

remember that the directory services store all user and group information.  The traditional /etc/group etc are only used in single user mode.

so, you can use the dscl command to create and update groups from the command line (into the directory).  such as:

dscl . create /groups/sunnz gid 1000
dscl . create /groups/sunnz passwd '*'
dscl . merge /groups/sunnz users user1 user2

above creates a group 'sunnz' with gid 1000 and adds user1 and user2 to it.

you can check your work in the netinfo  manager with:

nidump group . | grep sunnz

Netinfo might be more straightforward!


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## Sunnz (May 5, 2007)

Yea Netinfo seems to be a bit easier...

I mean, what's dscl? Kind of counter-intuitive compared to groupadd and stuff.


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## bartcatz (May 5, 2007)

object oriented mumbo jumbo!  dscl is a generic interface for managing the data in the repository.  I've used AIX, with it's odm, so I'm kinda used to it.  but I use netinfo for this stuff...onry if I was automating a bunch of stuff would I use dscl.  onesy twosey is too easy though gui.


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