This is an archive of past FreeBSD releases; it's part of the FreeBSD Documentation Archive.
If you didn't create any users when you installed the system and are thus logged in as root, you should probably create a user now with
# adduser
Suppose you create a user jack with full name Jack Benimble. Give jack a password if security (even kids around who might pound on the keyboard) is an issue. When it asks you if you want to invite jack into other groups, type wheel
Login group is ``jack''. Invite jack into other groups: wheel
You can quit adduser any time by typing Ctrl-C, and at the end you'll have a chance to approve your new user or simply type n for no. You might want to create a second new user (jill?) so that when you edit jack's login files, you'll have a hot spare in case something goes wrong.
Once you've done this, use exit to get back to a login prompt and log in as jack. In general, it's a good idea to do as much work as possible as an ordinary user who doesn't have the power—and risk—of root.
If you already created a user and you want the user to be able to su to root, you can log in as root and edit the file /etc/group, adding jack to the first line (the group wheel). But first you need to practice vi, the text editor--or use the simpler text editor, ee, installed on recent version of FreeBSD.
To delete a user, use the rmuser command.