13.5 User Accounts

User accounts are the primary means of access for real people to the system, and these accounts insulate the user and the environment, preventing the users from damaging the system or other users, and allowing users to customize their environment without affecting others.

Every person accessing your system should have a unique user account. This allows you to find out who is doing what, prevent people from clobbering each others' settings or reading each others' mail, and so forth.

Each user can set up their own environment to accommodate their use of the system, by using alternate shells, editors, key bindings, and language.