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I currently have an Ubuntu server with 10-15 users. I have some CLI experience, but I am not a fully CLI ninja. I currently have some groups made in the CLI to manage different groups of users.

In the near future we will probably expend ( how much more is not sure right now). Before things get out of hand I am currently looking for some sort of central managing system to manage the users and groups. I have looked at Puppet and it does a really good job at different things, but not so good at managing users at the servers (FYI, I have never used Puppet and this is just from researching the Internet. Some even say that it is bad practice. Please tell me if this is not true !!! ).

So, what I would like is some sort of webgui to manage the users and groups. So I can click to what software can be used and what folders can be accessed and not.

I have looked at gnome-system-tools and is ok to use for making new users and to add them to groups. If somebody would like to add the programs than can be used with a certain group you still have to go to the CLI.

Question: Is there some sort of web GUI to manager users and groups from a linux server?

P.S. Just to be sure, I am not looking for something like LDAP or any other central login methods. I would just like to manage the users and groups and what they can do.

Update

Webmin was not what I was looking for. It can create users and groups. But I cannot make a group and say what software can be used with that group or even what wallpaper will be used. So I am more looking to get some sort of way to create a standard template I can constructe ( in the web GUI ) for different types of users and use that over and over again when making new users. And if something changes overtime I can simply change the template and the changes affect all the users in that group.

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Yes, there are many such tools. One I happen to have used personally, is webmin. It can do all sorts of things through a simple and intuitive web interface, including user administration:

   enter image description here

To install Webmin you first have to add the repository.

deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib
deb http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository sarge contrib

Then you have to add the key of the repository:

cd /root
wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
apt-key add jcameron-key.asc

Update your system so Ubuntu will check for the new repository:

sudo apt-get update

You can install it on Ubuntu with 

sudo apt-get install webmin

And then point your browser to https://localhost:10000 to access it (if that doesn't work, try http://locahost:10000). I have never used it on an Ubuntu system or any other with no root account so I'm not sure, but you might have to enable root to use it.

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  • Thanks for the answer. I will check it out. If you know any other options, please let me know (just to compare). Commented Dec 25, 2015 at 15:42

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