Advanced Linux Shell Scripting for DevOps Engineers with User Management
Advanced Linux Shell Scripting for DevOps Engineers covers a wide range of topics, including :
Automating System Configuration and Maintenance.
Version Control and Continuous Integration.
Containerization and Orchestration.
Infrastructure as Code(IaC).
Security and Compliance.
Advanced Linux Shell Scripting for DevOps Engineers can cover a wide range of topics, but one area that may be particularly relevant to DevOps is user management. In this context, shell scripts can be used to automate the creation, modification, and deletion of user accounts, as well as other related tasks such as managing groups and permissions.
-> Here are some examples of shell scripts for user management:
Creating a User Account
To create a user account, you can use the
useradd
command. Here's an example script that prompts the user for a username and password, and then creates the account:COPY
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#!/bin/bash # Prompt the user for a username and password read -p "Enter username: " username read -s -p "Enter password: " password # Create the user account with the given username and password useradd -m -p "$password" "$username"
This script uses the
useradd
command to create a new user account with the-m
option to create a home directory for the user, and the-p
option to set the user's password (which must be provided in encrypted form). Note that you should always use encrypted passwords, and never store them in plain text.Modifying a User Account
To modify an existing user account, you can use the
usermod
command. Here's an example script that prompts the user for a username and a new password, and then changes the account's password:COPY
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#!/bin/bash # Prompt the user for a username and new password read -p "Enter username: " username read -s -p "Enter new password: " new_password # Change the user's password to the new password echo "$new_password" | passwd --stdin "$username"
This script uses the
passwd
command to change the password for the given user. Note that we use the--stdin
option to read the new password from standard input, which is passed in using theecho
command.Deleting a User Account
To delete an existing user account, you can use the
userdel
command. Here's an example script that prompts the user for a username and then deletes the account:COPY
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#!/bin/bash # Prompt the user for a username to delete read -p "Enter username to delete: " username # Delete the user account with the given username userdel "$username"
This script uses the
userdel
command to delete the user account with the given username. Note that this will also delete the user's home directory and any files it contains, unless the-r
option is used to remove the directory recursively.Managing User Groups and Permissions
To manage user groups and permissions, you can use a combination of commands such as
groupadd
,groupdel
,usermod
, andchgrp
. Here's an example script that adds a user to a new group and changes the ownership of a directory:COPY
COPY
#!/bin/bash # Prompt the user for a username and group name read -p "Enter username: " username read -p "Enter group name: " groupname # Create the new group if it doesn't exist if ! getent group "$groupname" > /dev/null; then groupadd "$groupname" fi # Add the user to the group usermod -aG "$groupname" "$username" # Change the ownership of a directory to the new group chgrp -R "$groupname" /path/to/directory
This script first checks if the specified group exists using the
getent
command, and creates it if it doesn't exist.
Task :
- You have to do the same using Shell Script i.e using either Loops or command with start day and end day variables using arguments -
So Write a bash script createDirectories.sh that when the script is executed with three given arguments (one is directory name and second is start number of directories and third is the end number of directories ) it creates specified number of directories with a dynamic directory name.
-> Here's a possible implementation of the createDirectories.sh
script that creates a specified number of directories with a dynamic name:
COPY
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#!/bin/bash
# Get the directory name, start number, and end number from the command-line arguments
dir_name=$1
start_num=$2
end_num=$3
# Loop through the range of numbers and create a directory for each one
for ((i=$start_num; i<=$end_num; i++)); do
dir_path="${dir_name}${i}"
mkdir "$dir_path"
done
This script takes three arguments from the command line: the base name for the directories (dir_name
), the starting number for the directories (start_num
), and the ending number for the directories (end_num
). It then uses a loop to iterate over the range of numbers from start_num
to end_num
, and for each number, it creates a directory with a name formed by concatenating the dir_name
and the current number.
For example, if you ran the script as ./
createDirectories.sh
day 1 90
, it would create 90 directories named day1
, day2
, day3
, and so on, up to day90
.
Create a Script to backup all your work done till now.
here's a basic shell script that can be used to backup all files in the current directory and its subdirectories:
COPY
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#!/bin/bash # set the backup directory backup_dir=/path/to/backup/directory # set the backup file name backup_file=backup_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).tar.gz # create the backup directory if it doesn't exist mkdir -p "$backup_dir" # create the backup file tar czf "$backup_dir/$backup_file" . # print a success message echo "Backup created successfully: $backup_dir/$backup_file"
Save this script as
backup.sh
and make it executable usingchmod +x
backup.sh
. Then, to run the script, simply execute./
backup.sh
.This script creates a backup directory, sets a backup file name with the current date and time, creates a compressed tar archive of all files in the current directory and its subdirectories, and saves it to the backup directory. Finally, it prints a message indicating the success of the backup operation.
Read About Cron and Crontab, to automate the backup Script.
Cron is a time-based job scheduler in Linux and Unix-like operating systems. It allows users to schedule jobs (commands or scripts) to run at specified intervals, such as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. Cron jobs can be used for various tasks such as backups, system maintenance, data processing, and monitoring.
Crontab is a configuration file that is used to define the schedule and commands for cron jobs. Each user on the system can have their own crontab file, which is used to schedule jobs to run under their user account.
To automate the backup script we created earlier using cron and crontab, follow these steps:
Open the crontab file for your user account using the command:
crontab -e
Add the following line to the end of the file:
COPY
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0 0 * * * /path/to/backup.sh
This line schedules the backup script to run every day at midnight (0 0 *).
Note: Replace
/path/to/backup.sh
with the actual path to your backup scriptSave and close the crontab file.
Cron will now execute the backup script automatically at the specified interval. You can modify the schedule to suit your needs by adjusting the values in the crontab line. For example, to run the backup script every hour, you can use the following crontab line:
COPY
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0 * * * * /path/to/backup.sh
This line schedules the backup script to run every hour at minute 0 (0 ).
- > Read about User Management.
Creating new user accounts: This involves setting up a new account with a unique username and password, assigning the user to a group with specific privileges, and specifying the user's home directory.
Modifying user accounts: This includes changing the user's password, updating user information such as email address and phone number, modifying user permissions, and changing the user's group membership.
Deleting user accounts: This involves removing a user account from the system, deleting the user's files and directories, and revoking the user's access to system resources.
Managing user groups: This includes creating new groups, adding users to existing groups, and removing users from groups.
- > Create 2 users and just display their Usernames.
here are the commands to create two users and display their usernames:
To create the first user, use the following command:
COPY
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sudo useradd -m user1
This creates a new user with the username "user1" and creates a home directory for them (-m option).
To create the second user, use the following command:
COPY
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sudo useradd -m user2
This creates a new user with the username "user2" and creates a home directory for them (-m option).
To display the usernames of the two users, you can use the following command:
COPY
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cat /etc/passwd | grep user
This displays the contents of the /etc/passwd file, which contains user account information, and filters out any lines that don't contain the string "user" using the grep command. The output should look something like this:
COPY
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user1:x:1001:1001::/home/user1:/bin/bash user2:x:1002:1002::/home/user2:/bin/bash
The usernames are the first fields separated by colons, so in this case, the usernames are "user1" and "user2".
Day 4 of #90daysofDevOps
Thanks for reading
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