pctechguide.com

  • Home
  • Guides
  • Tutorials
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • Glossary
  • Contact

How to Create a Secure Password

Users are hugely important on a Linux system. We’ll look at how to create a new user, and how and when to use super user privileges, to help make sure that our Linux use is safe.

Creating a New User

The first thing we’re going to do is create a new user account for ourselves. Running Linux as the root user is really dangerous, as any small mistake can potentially be catastrophic for the whole system. For this reason it’s best to create a new user account and use that when using the system, and only use root user privileges when absolutely necessary.

First of all, decide what you want your login name to be. Usually, it’s your first name, perhaps with the first initial of your surname. Don’t start with a number, don’t use spaces or control characters, and it’s best to use all lower case letters. Also, keep it down to no more than eight characters in length.

So, if you’re Bill Gates, you might want your Linux login to be billg – or just bill. This is fine as a login, but down the line it might be useful if the user could be identified from a better description. Fortunately, Linux allows us to specify the full name with the user account. To add Bill to the computer, we’d do this:

$ useradd -c Bill Gates billg

You can use this command to go ahead and create your account now, simply substitute your own name for Bill Gates, and your own choice of login name for billg. For Windows users, note the convention of the $ sign. This just means that you are at the Linux command prompt, and should type what comes after the $ and hit enter.

Creating a Secure Password

Now you need to choose a password. If you’re using a public server then you really need to take this seriously. You must choose a safe password or you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to hacker attacks. Hackers could potentially take down your website, your entire server, or worse, compromise sensitive data.

The best passwords are a combination of letters in upper and lower case, include numbers, and also symbols. They must not include dictionary words, names, or birthdates – at least not whole. Most people balk at this and wonder how they can ever come up with a password that they’ll remember. There are two possibilities. With the first, the secret is to choose a phrase that will serve as a mnemonic, and build the password from that. Here are some examples.

Password Mnemonic
Mff?Noyb! My favourite food? None of your business!
Iu2*l*VH I used 2 *love* Van Halen
R1:UUClcs&n Rule 1: Use Upper Case lower case symbols & numbers

Obviously the mnemonic will be personal to you. Notice that the words in the mnemonic indicate whether the password letter should be upper or lower case.

The second method involves interleaving two seperate phrases or number sequences. This can be a little less secure, so be careful using it. But for instance, take a name, say Van Halen, and one of their album titles, OU812. The principle is that the two phrases are weaved together, like this:

VOaUn_8H1a2l?en

At first glance, this looks like gibberish, and is pretty tough to guess. However, you will need to choose two good phrases that you can remember, and make sure that they are distinct in some way. One should be letters, the other numbers, and introduce a symbol where possible as in the example, where the underscore has been used for the space, and a question mark has been added to the question OU812 (Oh you ate one too?).

So now you’ve chosen your password, you can add it to your account using the passwd command. For our user billg, we’d do the following:

$ passwd billg

When you enter this command, you’ll be prompted to enter the password. Type it in carefully, and be warned that you won’t see the characters on screen as you type them in. You’ll need to repeat the password to verify that you have entered it correctly. If all has gone well, you’ll be returned to the command prompt.

You should now log out of the system as root user, and in future log in only to your new user account. To do this, go through the login process but now substitute your new user name for root, and enter your newly created password when prompted.

  • Advantage to Shared Web Hosting
  • Shared Hosting Issues – Shared Bandwidth and Server Resources
  • The Ins and Outs of Dedicated Web Hosting
  • When To Move To A Dedicated Server
  • Choosing a Dedicated Server for your Website
  • Managing and Operating a Dedicated Server Over the Internet Using Online Control Panels
  • Accessing the Linux Operating System on Dedicated Servers with PuTTY or SSH
  • How to Create a Secure Password
  • Using Sudo for Super User Access to Root Privileges in Linux
  • The Linux Directory Structure
  • Linux Commands for Navigating and Viewing Directories
  • Creating, Moving, Renaming and Copying Files and Directories in Linux
  • Find, View and Delete Files and Directories Using Linux Commands
  • Using vi to Edit Text Files on A Linux Dedicated Server

Nowadays, we see a trend of moving away from passwrods altogether. This is so because passwords hacking has evolved, and the threat surface has increased. Many different forms of passwordless authentication exist for companies and individuals to use. Prime example is the multi-factor authentication method.

Filed Under: Moving from Shared to Dedicated Web Hosting Tagged With: how to create a secure password, how to create a strong password, secure passwords

Latest Articles

DDR4 SDRAM – Faster and More Improved Memory Capacity

DDR4 SDRAM which means in computing world for Double Data Rate Fourth Generation Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory was released for public purchase during the second quarter of 2014. It is the higher version of the DDR3 but with a lesser voltage requirement of only 1.2 volts. Compared to … [Read More...]

MSI 890GXM-G65 Review

Price: $127. The MSI 890GXM-G65 motherboard packs a lot of power in a very small space. Bang for buck you are getting a lot for your money.is an Intel 7 series motherboard. Socket H2 (LGA1155) At this time the product has 2 positive reviews on Tigerdirect. Read Reviews here Prices change all … [Read More...]

Monitoring in Machine Learning Part 1: Potential Pitfalls

In this article of the Machine Learning Operations series we will see in detail what monitoring a Machine Learning model consists of. So let's get started! IntroductionIn Machine Learning Operations (or MLOps) we seek to take a Machine Learning model from the development stage to the … [Read More...]

Gaming Laptop Security Guide: Protecting Your High-End Hardware Investment in 2025

Since Jacob took over PC Tech Guide, we’ve looked at how tech intersects with personal well-being and digital safety. Gaming laptops are now … [Read More...]

20 Cool Creative Commons Photographs About the Future of AI

AI technology is starting to have a huge impact on our lives. The market value for AI is estimated to have been worth $279.22 billion in 2024 and it … [Read More...]

13 Impressive Stats on the Future of AI

AI technology is starting to become much more important in our everyday lives. Many businesses are using it as well. While he has created a lot of … [Read More...]

Graphic Designers on Reddit Share their Views of AI

There are clearly a lot of positive things about AI. However, it is not a good thing for everyone. One of the things that many people are worried … [Read More...]

Redditors Talk About the Impact of AI on Freelance Writers

AI technology has had a huge impact on our lives. A 2023 survey by Pew Research found that 56% of people use AI at least once a day or once a week. … [Read More...]

11 Most Popular Books on Perl Programming

Perl is not the most popular programming language. It has only one million users, compared to 12 million that use Python. However, it has a lot of … [Read More...]

Guides

  • Computer Communications
  • Mobile Computing
  • PC Components
  • PC Data Storage
  • PC Input-Output
  • PC Multimedia
  • Processors (CPUs)

Recent Posts

Simple Data Encryption and Boost Protection

Nowadays it is more important than ever to have security and protection over all aspects of your PC. We've learned the hard way that even wealthy … [Read More...]

How to move all of your content from one cloud storage service to another

We are going to explain how to move all your content from one cloud storage service to another, so you can move your files easily if you have decided … [Read More...]

The Potential Power of DDR3 Memory

DDR3 SDRAM which stands for Double Data Rate Type Three Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory is the higher version of DDR2 and predecessor of … [Read More...]

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2025 About | Privacy | Contact Information | Wrtie For Us | Disclaimer | Copyright License | Authors