Default groups assigned to the first user in Ubuntu Server 8.04?

Question

I just made a silly mistake on my Ubuntu Server box: I added myself to a group using usermod -G, after which I discovered the -a option...

The result is that I am now out of the admin group, and lost my sudo rights. I can sort that out, but I want to know what other groups I may been removed from? My user was the first one so what I'm looking for is a list of groups that the first user gets added to at installation time.

Solution 1

Michael's answer was the closest, but I wanted to be sure, so I installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu Server 8.04.2 (Hardy Heron) in a virtual machine to get the official group list. The installation was a basic one with no specific server roles selected. These are the first groups, assigned by default, to the first user:

• $USERNAME (e.g. wayne) (primary group - the rest are supplementary groups)
• adm
• dialout
• cdrom
• floppy
• fuse
• audio
• dip
• video
• plugdev
• sambashare
• lpadmin
• admin

To assign these groups to a given user, issue the following command:

sudo usermod -a -G adm,dialout,cdrom,floppy,audio,dip,fuse,video,plugdev,scanner,sambashare,lpadmin,admin

The -a switch means "append" so that existing supplementary groups are not overwritten.

To get a list of groups assigned to a particular user:

cat /etc/group | grep <username> 

or for the current user:

groups

Solution 2

From here, the default groups for the first user on an Ubuntu box are:

• $USERNAME (Primary)
• adm
• dialout
• cdrom
• floppy
• audio
• dip
• video
• plugdev
• scanner
• netdev
• lpadmin
• powerdev
• admin

Solution 3

For Ubuntu 14.04 LTS:

$USERNAME adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare

Solution 4

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:

$USERNAME adm disk cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare

Solution 5

Ubuntu Server 9.10 (samba, openssh instaled)

$username, adm, dialout, cdrom, plugdev, sambashare, lpadmin, admin

View more solutions

Comments

[stackprotector]

For different Ubuntu versions: Default groups for user in Ubuntu?

[Wayne Koorts]

So just admin and the username? Is that all for sure?

[ehogue]

On a standard install that's all there is. At work we use Fedora and I know for sure that's all there is. And on my Ubuntu box here I only have my username and adm that I added after.

[Michael Havas]

I forgot to mention that I don't have an Ubuntu box to verify this or know what version of Ubuntu these default groups belong to. It's a good starting point though.

[jldugger]

That guy's book is based on Ubuntu 7.10. Probably you have something different.

[ehogue]

You're right. here are the groups I have on my desktop at the office: username adm dialout cdrom plugdev lpadmin admin sambashare dev . It looks like I killed all the groups on my home box. I probably forgot the -a on a usermod too. I do that all the time, but usually I print out the groups I have before the usermod to be able repair any screw up I might make.

[ehogue]

To get the groups of a user you can also do: groups <username>

[HopelessN00b]

Exact same as for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, (which is in another answer), by the way.

[John Indra]

Exact same? The answer for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS has "disk". There is no "disk" in my Ubuntu 14.04 LTS setup. Even if it's the exact same, I don't see providing the info as doing any harm :)