How to Add a User and Grant Root Privileges on CentOS 7
II. How to Remove (Delete) a User on CentOS 7
- These instructions are intended specifically for adding a user on CentOS 7.
- I’ll be working from a Liquid Web Self Managed CentOS 7 server, and I’ll be logged in as root.

It’s just one simple command to add a user. In this case, we’re adding a user called mynewuser :
adduser mynewuser
Now set the password for the new user:
passwd mynewuser
For a refresher on editing files with vim see: New User Tutorial: Overview of the Vim Text Editor
visudo
Find the following code:
## Allow root to run any commands anywhere
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
In this case, we’re granting root privileges to the user mynewuser . Add the following below that code:
mynewuser ALL=(ALL) ALL
Then exit and save the file with the command :wq.
If you’ve followed the instruction above correctly, then you should now have a user setup by the name of mynewuser which can use sudo to run commands as root!
Related Articles:
- What is CentOS? Everything You Need to Know
- Check Apache Status with systemctl status and apachectl status Commands
- How to Find the Server Name Indication (SNI) Supporting Details
- How to Install Pip on CentOS 7
- Get Kernel Version for Linux: A Guide
- What Is a Time Series Database? How It Works & Use Cases

About the Author: Justin Palmer
Justin Palmer is a professional application developer with Liquid Web
Our Sales and Support teams are available 24 hours by phone or e-mail to assist.
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