create-sudo-user.md

Create a New Sudo User on Arch Linux

These commands create a new user, set their password, add them to the wheel group, and enable sudo access.

Run them as root or from an account that already has sudo access.

Fish shell

Copy and paste the entire block:

read -P "Username: " username
read -sP "Password: " password
echo

sudo useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash $username
echo "$username:$password" | sudo chpasswd

sudo sed -i 's/^# %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL/%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL/' /etc/sudoers

echo
echo "User '$username' created successfully."
echo "The user has sudo access through the wheel group."

If you are already logged in as root, remove sudo from the commands:

read -P "Username: " username
read -sP "Password: " password
echo

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash $username
echo "$username:$password" | chpasswd

sed -i 's/^# %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL/%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL/' /etc/sudoers

echo
echo "User '$username' created successfully."
echo "The user has sudo access through the wheel group."

Bash shell

Copy and paste the entire block:

read -rp "Username: " username
read -rsp "Password: " password
echo

sudo useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash "$username"
echo "$username:$password" | sudo chpasswd

sudo sed -i 's/^# %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL/%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL/' /etc/sudoers

echo
echo "User '$username' created successfully."
echo "The user has sudo access through the wheel group."

If you are already logged in as root:

read -rp "Username: " username
read -rsp "Password: " password
echo

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash "$username"
echo "$username:$password" | chpasswd

sed -i 's/^# %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL/%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL/' /etc/sudoers

echo
echo "User '$username' created successfully."
echo "The user has sudo access through the wheel group."

Verify the user

After creating the account, verify that it belongs to wheel:

id username

You should see wheel in the groups.

Then switch to the new user:

su - username

Test sudo:

sudo whoami

It should output:

root

Important

The wheel group must have this line enabled in /etc/sudoers:

%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

It is safer to edit /etc/sudoers with visudo if you are manually changing it:

sudo visudo

Then uncomment:

%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

If your Arch installation already has this line enabled, you don't need to modify /etc/sudoers at all.