User management: command line vs GUI tools

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: February 27, 2006]

Almost all Linux distribution comes with its own set of GUI tools to manage users and groups. For example:
* Red Hat comes with redhat-config-user
* Suse comes with Yast
* Debian Linux and other distro come with users-admin GUI tool set
* FreeBSD with sysinstall
* Solaris comes with Solaris Management Centre (SMC)

However, I recommend managing user accounts from command line. It offers following benefits over GUI tools:

Using commands from command line is faster
Automation is possible as per your requirements (use of Perl or shell scripting)
If you are going to use LDAP or NIS then command line provides best solution as compare to GUI tools

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