How do I a user to the Apache group called www-data under Ubuntu or Debian Linux server operating systems?
You need to use the useradd command to add a user to the group called www-data.
Add a new user to the www-data group
In this example, add a new user called vivek to the www-data group, enter:
sudo useradd -g www-data vivek ### set the password for vivek user ### sudo passwd vivek
To verify new settings, enter:
id vivek groups vivek
The group name www-data is the user’s initial login group i.e. vivek has been added to www-data primary group only.
www-data supplementary groups membership
To add a new user called vivek to supplementary groups called www-data and ftp, enter:
sudo groupadd vivek sudo useradd -g vivek -G www-data,ftp vivek sudo passwd vivek
To verify new settings, enter:
id vivek groups vivek
Add a existing user to www-data group
Type the following command to add an existing user called vgite to the www-data group, enter:
sudo usermod -a -G www-data vgite id vgite groups vgite
Above command will add the user vgite to the supplementary group called www-data. Use -a option only with the -G option.