System users
The Linux accounts that own and run your applications — create them, set the login shell, grant sudo, and manage SSH keys.
Every application on the server runs as a Linux user. The panel creates one automatically when you create an application, and that account owns the files, runs the PHP-FPM pool or the Node process, and is the account you use for SFTP.
System Users is where those accounts are listed, plus any you add yourself —
a shared deploy account for CI, or a person who needs SSH but should not own
anything.
The table
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Username | The account name, with its home directory underneath. |
| Password | Masked. The eye reveals it, the icon next to it copies it. |
| Shell | The login shell, changeable in place from the dropdown. |
| Sudo | Whether the account is in the sudo group. |
| SSH | Whether the account may sign in over SSH. |
| Applications | How many applications this user owns. |
The SSH column does nothing until Access & security is saved
Until you save Settings → Access & security once, the server has no per-user SSH policy, so every account can still sign in over SSH no matter what the switch says. The panel shows a banner saying so, with a link straight to that screen. Switching SSH off before then is recorded but not enforced.
Add a user
Click Add user. The form opens as a dialog. Only the username is required — the panel has already generated a password for you.
Type the username. This becomes a real Linux account, so stick to lowercase
letters, digits and dashes — deploy, deploy-demo, ci-runner. The home
directory is /home/<username>.
Leave the password as generated, or clear it. The panel fills a strong password in for you and Generate makes a new one. Clearing the field creates the account with no password at all, which is the right choice for an account that should only ever authenticate with a key.
Paste an SSH public key if you have one. It is optional, and it becomes the
account's first entry in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. You can add more later.
Open More options for the three settings that are easy to get wrong:
- Login shell — leave it on Full shell access (bash) unless the account should not be able to log in at all.
- Allow sudo — off by default. This is "run commands as root"; you can switch it on later.
- Allow SSH login — off by default.
Click Create user. The account appears at the top of the table with No applications against it.
Changing a user afterwards
The switches and the shell dropdown in the table act immediately — there is no save button.
Granting sudo asks first. It is the one change that hands out root, so the
panel confirms before it adds the account to the sudo group.
The shell and SSH settings constrain each other
A shell that refuses login (such as /usr/sbin/nologin) cannot be set while
SSH access is on — switch SSH off first. The reverse is also blocked: you
cannot turn SSH on for an account whose shell refuses login.
The row actions
The … menu on each row has three entries.
Password opens a dialog showing the current password and a form to set a new
one (at least 10 characters, typed twice). If SSH password sign-in is off on this
server, the dialog says so — the password still works for sudo and for local
login, but not for SSH or SFTP.
SSH keys lists the keys that may sign in as this account, and lets you add one. Each key needs a label so you can tell them apart later.
Delete removes the Linux account.
Limits and caveats
- A user that owns applications cannot be deleted. The menu entry is disabled and says so. Delete or move the applications first.
- The password column is the Linux account password. It is what
sudoand SFTP ask for. It is not an OSS Panel login — panel accounts are separate. - Usernames cannot be changed. Create a new account and move the work.
- Creating a user from this screen does not create an application, a web root or a PHP-FPM pool. Those come with the application, not the account.