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So friends, in this particular video, what I want to discuss with you is the

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user module within Ansible.

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Now you will recall having sat the RH CSA examination, we understand that on

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Linux systems,

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we have the ability to create users and then specify a whole list of associated

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attributes.

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Things like what type of shell environment should that user get? Should they

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get a

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born shell? Should they get a bad shell? That type of thing? Should they be

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granted some type

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of home directory upon the creation of their account? And we also have other
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of home directory upon the creation of their account? And we also have other

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considerations

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to recall when we happen to create a user account, say for example, the user is

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called John,

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then by default they're going to be associated with a primary group known as

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John, pretty much

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the same as their actual username, but we also have the ability to invoke

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secondary groups.

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So that means that the user doesn't have to just be a member of one single

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group,

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we can be a member of multiple groups. So in this particular video, we're going

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to

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address some of the issues and concerns around creating these particular users
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address some of the issues and concerns around creating these particular users

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with these

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specified attributes. So one thing to actually say on that note about the

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assignment of groups to a particular user is that when it comes to the actual

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creation

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of our user accounts, this actually can be handled via the user module in Ans

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ible.

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I mean, there is no real surprise there is the user module after all. However,

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when it comes to

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the creation of groups with an Ansible, we actually have a dedicated group

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module to handle that

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particular task. Now this might seem obvious, but it is worth pointing out for
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particular task. Now this might seem obvious, but it is worth pointing out for

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clarification,

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when we want to create a particular user using the user module, then we can

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assign the values

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such as the username, as well as the shell they're going to have. However, if

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we are going to specify

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which groups they belong to, well, those groups actually have to exist for the

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user module to operate

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correctly. Pretty much what I'm suggesting is that you actually use the group

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module first to create

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all the necessary groups such as you know, group one, group two, group three,
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all the necessary groups such as you know, group one, group two, group three,

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that type of thing.

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And once those groups actually exist, then use the user module to specify the

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user, say for example,

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John, and then with this particular module, you can assign the user John

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membership into these

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existing groups. So that really is the workflow that we're going to see when we

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happen to invoke

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the creation of particular groups. So the very first thing that we're going to

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do is of course,

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go to the documentation. And from that point on, we'll be able to figure out

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how to actually use

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this particular module or these two particular modules, should I say. Okay, so
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this particular module or these two particular modules, should I say. Okay, so

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let's get going.

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So recall, we can actually view the documentation directly via the command line

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interface. This

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would be the Ansible document. And I can do dash L for a listing. Now, if we

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happen to scroll on

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down, notice we have our built in group module, which is going to allow us to

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add or remove groups

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and scrolling on down a little bit further, we have this user module to manage

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user accounts.

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Now, if you do prefer, by all means, you can use this command line utility. It

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's very, very useful

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in the examination. But for the purposes of clarity, I just think it's a little
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in the examination. But for the purposes of clarity, I just think it's a little

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bit easier to consume

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on the web browser. So that is where I'm going to go just now. So if you just

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happened to search

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for Ansible, use our module, we can click this top link here in the

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documentation for Ansible.

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And let me just scroll on a little bit so we can see this module is a part of

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Ansible core,

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meaning that we don't have to install anything. No surprises there. It is a

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built in module after

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all. And if we scroll on down, we can see here, this is going to allow us to

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manage user accounts

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and user attributes. Notice though, if we happen to be also managing Windows
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and user attributes. Notice though, if we happen to be also managing Windows

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system with then

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Earth topology, we actually have a separate module for that. We actually have

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the Ansible

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Windows module. And then the when users are so be aware, this is not going to

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work on Windows

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based systems. So let's look at the parameters here. Check this one out right

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here. This is actually

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an important one append. We have a billion value, meaning that we're going to

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supply either true

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or false. And notice what happens here, it says if we set the value to true, we

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're going to add

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the user to the groups specified in the groups. Basically, this here is a non
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the user to the groups specified in the groups. Basically, this here is a non

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parameter that we

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can supply. Let me just go and show you that just now. So let's just scroll on

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down a little bit

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further. Check this one right here. It says we have the groups option and

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information we supply is a

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list of strings. And this is how we supply a list of all the supplementary

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groups, which the user is

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also a member of. So remember, we just talked about this, a user can be a

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member of multiple groups.

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But look at the default behavior. By default, the user is going to be removed

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from all other

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groups. So think about any groups you do not specify within this option, the
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groups. So think about any groups you do not specify within this option, the

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user is going to be

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removed from those groups by their omission. Now we can actually override this

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behavior by looking

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at the parameter we just saw before append when we set the append value to true

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. It means that the

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user is going to keep the membership to all other existing groups, even the

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ones we don't mention.

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And any groups we supplies, such as let's say we supply group four, group five,

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and group six.

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If the user is already a member of group one, two, and three, by setting the
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If the user is already a member of group one, two, and three, by setting the

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value to append,

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the user will be a member of group four, five, and six, as well as retaining

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their initial

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membership to groups of one, two, and three, whereas if we do not specify that

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we should append to

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these values, we would effectively remove their membership from groups one, two

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, and three,

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and they would only be a member of groups four, five, and six. That is what we

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're talking about

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here. As I mentioned earlier, we have the option to specify a user's home

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directory upon creation.

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We can do so by specifying the path and the home parameter. Now this particular
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We can do so by specifying the path and the home parameter. Now this particular

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parameter is

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very, very important. We can tell because it is a require parameter, meaning

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that the module will

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not operate without this option supplied. And that is the name pretty much we

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just have to specify

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or provide the name of the user that we want the user module to either create,

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remove, or modify.

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So this is non-negotiable. And if we just get down a little bit further, we can

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also supply a

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password for that particular user. We'll talk about that a little bit later on

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within this very

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skill. And then we come down to the shell option, again, we supply a string
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skill. And then we come down to the shell option, again, we supply a string

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value. And this is going

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to allow us to specify the user's shell. So like I say, if perhaps you want to

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give the user a

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bond shell, which would be bin SH, you can supply this right here, or depending

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on the environment,

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maybe you want to specify a Z shell. But more commonly, most cases you're going

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to be supplying

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a bin bash shell. So these are just some of the options for the user module. If

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we just go back

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to Google, and if you just happened to search for Ansible group module, this

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now takes us to

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documentation for this particular module. So let's scroll on down. Once again,
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documentation for this particular module. So let's scroll on down. Once again,

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we can see this is

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part of Ansible Core. It has a built-in module. We're not going to have to

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install it via collection.

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And again, the synopsis tells us this is going to allow us to manage the

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presence of groups on a

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host. Similarly, just like with the user module, if we're dealing with Windows

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system with thinner

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topology, we would have to use a different module entirely of the Ansible

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Windows when

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group module. So again, we can specify particular values. We can specify saying

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this example here,

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the group ID, which is going to be an integer value. Here we have the name
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the group ID, which is going to be an integer value. Here we have the name

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parameter. Once again,

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this is going to be a string value. And this is required. Basically, we can't

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use a module

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without supplying this value. And scrolling on down, we can specify the actual

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state that is whether

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the group should actually be on the system, or whether it should be removed

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from the system. So

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basically, we can specify should the state be absent to remove a particular

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group, or we can specify

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the state that should be present to ensure that that group is valid and present

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on the system.

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So now that we've seen some of the documentation, let's get hands on by
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So now that we've seen some of the documentation, let's get hands on by

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creating some examples in.

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Okay, so let's create a little playbook called play one dot yml. And let's just

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go in and edit

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this. Let's go into insert mode. Let's have our three hyphens at the top. We're

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going to give this

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a name. I'll just call this play one testing the user module. Now the host I'm

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going to target,

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let's target the all groups will target both the yellow box and the blue box,

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and are

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specify my tasks I wanted to find here. So the first task is going to be use

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the user module.

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So what's the name of the actual module where we know it's going to be answer
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So what's the name of the actual module where we know it's going to be answer

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able built in

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user. And now we're going to specify our particular value. So what was the

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required parameter? Well,

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if you recall, that was the name parameter, pretty much we're going to have to

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supply the name of

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the user we want to create. So let's create a user called Fred. Okay, now the

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next thing I'm going

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to do is I'm going to specify which type of shell environment should Fred have.

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So I will say shell.

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In this case here, I will just give Fred a born shell. Okay, so a pretty

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limited shell. And let's

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also specify the user ID. So let's give Fred a value of 1099. Okay, so let's
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also specify the user ID. So let's give Fred a value of 1099. Okay, so let's

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just write and quit.

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And all I will do in fact, just before I do this, if I go into the essay pass w

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d file,

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we can see we have our nugget user or answerable user and our test user. But

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notice we do not

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have an account for Fred when we run this particular command, that should exist

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. Or I suppose I should

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more accurately say when we run this particular playbook, it should exist. So

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with that said,

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let's hit enter. And we are gathering facts. I should probably have set that to

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false to speed

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things up. But nevertheless, and as we can see here, we have used the user
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things up. But nevertheless, and as we can see here, we have used the user

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module and have a change

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on both of our devices. So what we want to now do is to confirm those changes.

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So let's go back

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here. And if I now cat the same file, look at the very bottom here, we have the

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user Fred. We have

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Fred's user ID. And we can see that the shell that Fred has is the SH shell.

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Now right now Fred

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does not actually have a password. Again, we'll talk about that later on. But

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if I just say so,

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go past wd on Fred's and I type in my admin password. And now I give Freddy

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password of
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password of

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like just say Fred one. And I'll also confirm it as Fred one. Now Fred has a

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password so we should

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be able to substitute user into Fred's. And if I type in Fred one, I can say

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who am I? And I can

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echo out my shell environment. And we can see here we actually do have a born

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shell indeed.

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Similarly, if we go to the blue box and cat the exit password file, once again,

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then the very bottom, we can indeed see we have creative Fred with the user ID

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and we have assigned

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a born shell to that account. So now that we understand the very basics of

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creating a user with
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creating a user with

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Let's now get hands on with the group module.