Change users name linux

How To Change or Rename Username and User ID In Linux?

The problem is we want to change the already created user name or user id. As we know there is a lot of configuration those rely on the user id like permissions. We will use usermod command to make this change. Keep in mind this changes will effects system wide.

List User Info

Before starting to big changes we will list users detailed info with cat command like below.

List User Info

• test is our user name for this operation
• 1000 is the current id of our test user.

Change User Name

We will change username with the following command by providing new username. We will provide the -l option with the new username and old username. In this example we will change username ismail into ali .

• usermod is command we issue to chage
• -l ali is the new username
• ismail is the original username

Change User ID

Another opportunity is changing the user ID. Previously we have listed user information of the ismail . We know that the user id of the ismail is 1000 . We will use -u option and the new user id with the user name. In this example we will change the user id of ismail into 1010

• usermod is command used too
• -u 1010 is new user id provided for the user
• ismail is the user whose id will be changed.

Check It Again

After these steps we need to the if there is a problem or everything is OK. We will list user information again with the cat command like below.

• test2 is new username but home directory stays the same
• 1010 is the users new id

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How To Change Username On Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint Or Fedora

This is a step by step guide on how to change your username on Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint (and other Linux distributions based on Debian/Ubuntu), and Fedora.

The instructions explain how to change (rename) the username along with the user’s home folder name, as well as a simple work-around for potential issues with configuration files that still point to the old home folder name. There’s also a step for changing the full name (display name), which is shown on the login screen and other places throughout the desktop.

Throughout all the instructions / commands below, remember to replace newusername with the new username, and oldusername with the . old username.

1. Create a temporary user and give it sudo privileges.

We’ll login with the temporary user to perform the username change commands. This way there won’t be any issues running them from the same user we’re trying to rename (e.g. processes running for that user, etc.).

Add a new temporary user ( tempuser ) and give it sudo privileges on Debian, Ubuntu or Linux Mint (after entering a password you can keep pressing Enter to skip entering the rest of information):

Add a new tempuser and give it sudo privileges on Fedora:

2. Login with tempuser and change (rename) the username, home folder and group.

Logout, and on the login screen select tempuser and login with that user. Next, open a terminal and run these command to change your username, home folder, and group from oldusername to newusername :

If you get an error about a process being in use for the old username, kill that process ( kill PID ), but that shouldn’t happen in most cases since we’re logged in using a temporary, intermediate username to make these changes. If it does happen, another workaround is to reboot and then login straight with tempuser , that way there aren’t any processes used by the old username.

3. Create a symbolic link from /home/newusername to /home/oldusername .

Some applications will show errors when changing the username, because in some cases there are configuration files that point to the old username’s home folder. A solution for this is to create a symbolic link from the new home folder to the old home folder:

4. Change the display name / full name (firstname lastname).

In my case, trying to rename a username on Ubuntu 19.04 and Fedora 29, the display name (full name) remained unchanged on the GDM3 login screen and on the user menu. This can be changed though, using:

Replace firstname and lastname with your first and last name, or whatever you want to show up on the login screen and various other places throughout the system. firstname and lastname can also be one item, e.g. your new username.

The chfn command is available on Fedora in the util-linux-user package, which is not installed by default. You can install it on Fedora using:

After installing this package, the chfn command should work on Fedora.

5. Login using the new (renamed) username, and delete the temporary user created on step 1.

Logout and select the new, renamed username from the login screen, and proceed to login. You can now delete the temporary user created in step 1 ( tempuser ) and its home folder:

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How to rename Linux users and their home directory

Overview

In this tutorial, you will learn how to a rename a user in CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions. More than that, you will also learn how to rename thier home directory, primary group, and change their UID.

Renaming Users in Linux

Linux provides a tool named usermod specifically for making modifications to user accounts. In this case we are using it to rename a user account, which is done using the -l flag.

For example, to rename a user named student1 to johndoe, you would run the usermod command as follows.

The -l flag will only change the user’s name. All other things attached to the user will remain unaffected, such as home directory. and UID.

Changing a User’s Home Directory in Linux

After renaming a user it may make sense to change their home directory, too. Otherwise, it would cause a lot of confusion trying to explain why johndoe ‘s home directory is /home/student .

To change the user’s home directory we once again use the usermod command. However, this time we need to perform to actions: change the home directory to a new path, and move the contents from the old path into the new path.

We set the new home directory path using the -d or —home flag with the path to the new directory. We must also use the -m flag to copy the contents of the old home directory into the new one.

Renaming a User’s Group

Every user on a Linux system is created with a group of the same name. When we change the name of a user their group name is left untouched. It’s a good idea to also change the user’s primary group name as well.

To change a user’s primary group name we use the groupmod command with the -n flag. We must supply the old name and a new name.

For example, to rename the newly renamed user johndoe ‘s primary group to johndoe from student1 , we would run the following command.

Changing a User’s UID

A little more rare than renaming a user or changing their home directory is changing their UID. A User’s UID is their unique ID on a Linux system. When we assign permissions to file and directories, we use their UID. Processes started by a user are also executed using a user’s UID.

To change a user’s ID we use the usermod command with the -u flag, followed by a new, unique integer.

For example, to set johndoes UID to 5001, we would run the following usermod command.

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Proper way of changing username in Ubuntu or any linux

I am using Ubuntu 12.04 and made some customization. I will also make it a new iso which is customized ubuntu.

What I want to ask is how can I change my username. There are plenty much configuration in my current home folder. So I don’t want to mess up with changing username.

So is there any best practice or workflow to do that?

5 Answers 5

The really right way? Say you want to change user ‘peter’ to ‘paul’.

This changes the name, the group, the home directory and ownership and group of of that directory to the new ones, along with all the files. You end up with a user indistinguishable from having been originally created as ‘paul’.

Another way would be to edit the first fields of peter’s entries in the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files. Then change every occurrence of ‘peter’ to ‘paul’ in /etc/group . Then rename the home directory from /home/peter to /home/paul . And then chown -R paul /home/paul to get the ownerships and groupships of the directory and all the files and dirs under it to have the new ones.

I would recommend not attempting to change a user’s name. This is generally wrought with problems when the user’s name is statically referenced in configuration files in the form of the user’s home directory, /home/ . These are almost never written in a generic way so it’s usually best to just create a new username and then migrate the user’s files and data over to the new account.

Use usermod to change the username and home directory. Change user peter to paul:

change home directory and move everything there (created if necessary)

Change the group name, but don’t use usermod as it requires you to first make another group (eg. GID 1001) and although it will update the GID for everything within the $HOME directory, you will have to search for and change the files and directories elsewhere with the old group ownership. Instead, just change the group name manually.

You will have to change the filenames used by cron, at, and other services that use the username instead of the UID. Use

to find these files.

You will also have to change the config files used by some services such as you mail handling applications.

Finally, scripts using «/home/peter/» will need to be edited. Change occurences of «/home/peter/» to «$HOME».

It isn’t a lot of work to change user identities, you just need to be thorough.

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How can I rename an unix user?

I have a user named hedgehog and I want him to be named squirrel , but I don’t want to change his numeric user ID.
How can I accomplish this?

3 Answers 3

Under Linux, the usermod command changes user names. It modifies the system account files to reflect the changes that are specified on the command line.

To change just the username:

To change the username and home directory name:

You may also want to change the name of the group associated with the user:

NOTE: don’t try this if your directory is encrypted! If this is your case you might want to check first: https://askubuntu.com/questions/107410/can-you-unencrypt-remove-encryption-from-a-user-home-folder

The straight out way of doing this is:

Create a new temp account with sudo rights:

Log out from your current account and back in with the temp account.

Rename your username and directory:

Rename your username default’s group:

Log out from temp account and log back into your account with new-username.

Remove temp account:

Otherwise, you just (1) create a new user and (2) rsync the old user home folder to the new and then (3) chown it.

Generally you can rename a user by changing their username in the /etc/passwd (and /etc/shadow , if applicable) files. On most unix systems the vipw command is used to edit these files (and on many systems includes some safeguards to ensure that you don’t mess things up too badly).
See the man pages for passwd(5) , shadow(5) , and vipw(8) for more information.

Note that the method above does not rename other things which may bear the original username (home directories being the prime example, per-user personal groups (on systems which use them) being another). You may wish to clean these up as well for consistency, by changing the appropriate fields in the passwd file and renaming the directories.

Several operating systems provide a system-specific way of renaming users. For example many Linux systems include the usermod(8) command, and on AIX you can change account names using SMIT (or smitty in a terminal).
These commands will often handle the cleanup items like renaming home directories, if you ask them to.

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