environment-setup

1 User Management

Creating a New User

1. Log in as the root or default user.
2. Create a new user:

   sudo adduser <username>

This command creates a new user and prompts you to set a password. The system will also ask for optional user details (full name, room number, etc.).

3. Set a password when prompted and confirm it. (for this part, I’ve chosen a weak password from the rockyou.txt wordlist)

Assigning and Managing User Privileges

• Grant sudo privileges to the user:

  sudo usermod -aG sudo <username>

usermod modifies a user account. aG sudo adds the user to the sudo group, granting administrative privileges.

• Verify the user’s sudo access:

  su - <username>
  sudo whoami

su - switches to the newly created user. sudo whoami should return root, confirming sudo access.

2 SSH Configuration for Password-Based Authentication

Starting and Validating SSH Service

1. Start the SSH Service:

   sudo systemctl start ssh

2. Check the status of SSH:

   sudo systemctl status ssh

Displays the status of the SSH service to verify that it’s running.

3. Test SSH login from a remote machine:

   ssh <username>@<server-ip>

username is the user created earlier.

server-ip is the IP address of the Ubuntu server.

If successful, you should gain access to the server remotely.