user account

A user account ( english user account ), short user account or the account is an access authorization to a restricted IT system. Usually one has to user to the login with user name and password to authenticate .

The system uses the user account to identify the individual user. This essentially serves the following purposes:

Depending on the user role , a user is assigned different privileges , for example access rights to data and (sub) systems. Many computer systems have a particularly privileged user account that is intended for system administration .

Together with the user account, personal data ( master and transaction data ) and configuration settings of the respective user can be saved.

Operating systems

An operating system saves the configuration of a user account in the so-called user profile .

Special user accounts

The user account specifically for the purposes of system administration is in Microsoft Windows administrator , at Novell's network operating system NetWare Admin and Unix -like operating systems root . Other special user accounts that are frequently encountered are:

Guest as an account for guests (usually without write access, often without a password)

Anonymous as the account for logging on to FTP servers; Here you usually want to provide your email address when you register

Shell account , a user account on a remote computer through which the user can access it on the basis of a Unix shell .

Groups and roles

Often, user accounts are combined into groups. The group's rights are also assigned to all of its members.

On Unix systems, the groups are usually combined in the file /etc/group; the assignment of the user accounts to the primary group takes place via the file /etc/passwd. Each user account can, however, belong to several groups; then the assignment is /etc/groupmade in.

On BSD systems, a user can only have root rights if he is assigned to the wheel group . In addition to groups, it is also assigned to classes that assign it parameters such as locales and barriers such as maximum number of processes.

There is a sophisticated concept of roles in Zope . In addition to the group concept, these roles can also be assigned locally , for example in order to only assign editing rights in a certain subtree.

safety

Working with unnecessarily privileged user accounts (e.g. the "Administrator" account in Windows) is considered unprofessional, as it makes the system more vulnerable - every program can contain a bug in the program or a security hole. If such a program runs under higher privileges, the computer system can also be damaged more sensitively (for example by overwriting system files).

Some manufacturers deliver their operating system in such a way that you can work either as an administrator or as a user with administrator rights without change (example: Mac OS X , Microsoft Windows up to and including Windows XP, from Vista limited rights, Linspire ).

User accounts on the Internet

A user account is required , for example, to receive and send e-mail : when logging in , the e-mail provider connects the user to his e-mail inbox .

Furthermore, user accounts in web shops , in online banking , in social networks , forums , chat rooms , wikis and many other areas of the World Wide Web are common. The user is linked to an online identity via the user account. A user can (usually) acquire several such identities.

Internet security

In particular, if a user account is accessed via external networks, e.g. For example, in the Internet café or via hot spots , security-relevant data such as user name and password can be intercepted / tapped, provided that these are not transmitted in encrypted form; see also encryption protocol . A sneaking attacker could slip into the role of the user.