How to add user to a group from Mac OS X command line?

Question

I am trying to add a user to a group from the command line but can't figure out how. Specifically this is on Mac OS X Server version 10.5.8.

The user is 'john', the groups are 'admin' and 'wheel'.

score 328 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 02 '21 at 15:02

328

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a john -t user admin
sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a john -t user wheel

It's also possible to do this with dscl, but to do it properly you need to both add the user's short name to the group's GroupMembership list, and add the user's GeneratedUID to the group's GroupMembers list. dseditgroup takes care of both in a single operation.

edited Dec 02 '21 at 15:02

Paweł Gościcki

2,818

answered Nov 23 '10 at 19:57

Gordon Davisson

34,729

16

Sorry i'm not too cleared with the usage. Lets say i want to add the username bob into wheel, will it be sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a bob -t user wheel ? – 夏期劇場 Mar 02 '14 at 03:46
6

@夏期劇場: Correct. – Gordon Davisson Mar 02 '14 at 04:41
2

I had to add -p as well so I could enter my password. – Vinicius Braz Pinto Apr 27 '14 at 18:23
5

Still valid on osx 10.9.2; copy and paste if you are searching for apache: sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a `whoami` -t user _www – vault Jul 16 '14 at 13:30
Still works in 10.10.3 (Yosemite). – WHO'sNoToOldRx4Covid-CENSORED Apr 28 '15 at 04:45
Will these commands affect user's recently groups? – Eray Jun 08 '15 at 16:51
@Eray I don't understand the question; can you clarify? – Gordon Davisson Jun 08 '15 at 19:05
2

Working in El Capitan (10.11.6) as well! – alexw Nov 23 '16 at 20:16
1

This is an excellent resource: https://blog.travismclarke.com/post/osx-cli-group-management/ – Aaron Williams Aug 29 '18 at 07:46
Well well. What do you know. It still works under macOS Big Sur 11.0 Beta (20A5384c)! Thanks! – Gwyneth Llewelyn Oct 08 '20 at 19:28
sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a "$(whoami)" -t user "wheel" – cachius Jun 14 '23 at 06:26

score 20 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 04 '20 at 11:52

20

For those who are looking for the same answer to newer versions of Mac OS, I've found this: To add a user to a group, you need this command ($USER is the current logged-in user) :

$ sudo dscl . append /Groups/wheel GroupMembership $USER

I was trying to add my user to the wheel group, to be able to manipulate the /Library/WebServer/Documents folder. Besides that, I had to change the permissions to that folder, as by default it is 755. I've changed it to 775 with:

$ sudo chmod -R 775 /Library/WebServer/Documents

This way I can manipulate the folder content without changing the owner of the folder.

ps. Still working on Catalina (10.15.3)

edited Apr 04 '20 at 11:52

Dave M

13,200

answered Feb 06 '18 at 17:59

Brosig

301

1

Can anyone confirm whether this works on 10.14 (mojave) ? – Sary Feb 08 '19 at 08:28
2

It works for me on 10.14.4. – mwfearnley May 14 '19 at 10:44
1

Great. works with Mojave 10.14.5. Thanks for sharing! – LeOn - Han Li Jun 04 '19 at 19:14
1

@GordonDavisson's answer seems also to work on recent versions (I just used it on Ventura), and says that, in addition to this step, one should also add the user's UID to the group's GroupMembers list. – LSpice Mar 31 '23 at 01:12
1

works on macos Ventura 13.5 (well, worked once) – OsamaBinLogin Nov 12 '23 at 00:47

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 23 '10 at 02:50

5

Check out this link:

http://osxdaily.com/2007/10/29/how-to-add-a-user-from-the-os-x-command-line-works-with-leopard/

Adding a user is something easily accomplished using the built in GUI tools that ship with OS X, however any power user can appreciate the possible efficiency gained from using the command line. So in the spirit of efficiency here are the steps necessary to add a user to your Mac OS X system all with our good friend, Terminal.app.

The important bit is here:

Create and set the user’s group ID property.

dscl / -create /Users/toddharris PrimaryGroupID 1000

answered Nov 23 '10 at 02:50

tried it with sudo dscl . -append /Groups/admin GroupMembership username and though it added the user to "admin" but it also added a bunch of other groups like com.apple.sharepoint.group.1 and com.apple.access_screensharing ect... ?!? – Meltemi Nov 23 '10 at 03:01
That is strange. On the other hand, perhaps these are groups that have been associated with that user, or it somehow inherited them from elsewhere. – Nov 23 '10 at 03:13
Did you read through the man pages for dscl at all? – Nov 23 '10 at 03:17

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 02 '24 at 17:48

0

on macOS "Sonoma", I added a user to a group with this script:

#!/bin/bash -ve
sudo grep admin /etc/sudoers
USER=foo
add $USER to "admin" group
sudo echo $USER
sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a $USER -t user admin

answered Jan 02 '24 at 17:48

user19009041

1

Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Community Jan 02 '24 at 19:20

How to add user to a group from Mac OS X command line?

4 Answers4

add $USER to "admin" group

Linked

Related