Step 6: Update the Cookbook to Add a User

Important

The AWS OpsWorks Stacks service reached end of life on May 26, 2024 and has been disabled for both new and existing customers. We strongly recommend customers migrate their workloads to other solutions as soon as possible. If you have questions about migration, reach out to the AWS Support Team on AWS re:Post or through AWS Premium Support.

Update your cookbook by adding a recipe that adds a local user to the instance and sets the user's home directory and shell. This is similar to running the Linux adduser or useradd commands or the Windows net user command. You add a local user to an instance, for example, when you want to control access to the instance's files and directories.

You can also manage users without using cookbooks. For more information, see Managing Users.

To update the cookbook on the instance and to run the new recipe

1. On your local workstation, in the recipes subdirectory in the opsworks_cookbook_demo directory, create a file named add_user.rb with the following code (for more information, go to user):

   user "Add a user" do
     home "/home/jdoe"
     shell "/bin/bash"
     username "jdoe"  
   end

2. At the terminal or command prompt, use the tar command create a new version of the opsworks_cookbook_demo.tar.gz file, which contains the opsworks_cookbook_demo directory and its updated contents.

3. Upload the updated opsworks_cookbook_demo.tar.gz file to your S3 bucket.

4. Follow the procedures in Step 5: Update the Cookbook on the Instance and Run the Recipe to update the cookbook on the instance and to run the recipe. In the "To run the recipe" procedure, for Recipes to execute, type opsworks_cookbook_demo::add_user.

To test the recipe

1. Log in to the instance, if you have not done so already.

2. From the command prompt, run the following command to confirm that the new user was added:

   grep jdoe /etc/passwd

   Information similar to the following is displayed about the user, including details such as the user's name, ID number, group ID number, home directory, and shell:

   jdoe:x:501:502::/home/jdoe:/bin/bash

In the next step, you will update the cookbook to create a directory on the instance.