What Is User Account?: Types of User Accounts

What is user account?
A user account is a location on a network server used to store a computer username, password, and
other information. A user account allows or does not allow a user to connect to a network, another
computer, or other shares. Any network that has multiple users requires user accounts.
Types of User account in Computer

Network Explained
This tutorial explains user account types in computer network. Learn different types of
user accounts such as system account, regular user account, guest user account, super
user account, group account, local user account, remote user account, network user
account and anonymous user account in detail.
Every user who uses the system should have an individual user account. Having a separate
user account allows user to store his files securely and customize his user interface.
Types of user accounts

Regardless which operating system we use, it uses user accounts to authenticate, trace,
log and monitor its services. When we install an operating system, it automatically creates
some essential user accounts which allow us to access it just after the installation. During
the installation, usually it creates four types of user account; system account, super user
account, regular user account and guest user account.
System accounts
These accounts are used by different services running in operating system to access the
system resources. Operating system uses these accounts to check whether a particular
service which is requesting for system resources is allowed to access those resources or
not. Usually services create necessary accounts on their own when they are installed. After
installation, services use these accounts to access necessary resources. Unless you are a
system or network administrator, you never need to know about these accounts.
Super user account

This user account has the highest privilege in operating system. In Windows, this user
account is known as Administrator account. In Linux it is known as root account. Operating
system allows this user account to perform all privileged tasks such as changing system
files, installing new software, removing existing software, starting services, stopping
services, creating new user accounts and deleting existing user accounts.
Regular user account
This user account has moderate privilege. This user account is not allowed to make any
change in system files and properties. Operating system allows this user account to
perform only the tasks that it is authorized to do such as creating files and folders, running
applications, customizing environmental variables, etc.
Guest user account
This user account has the lowest privilege. It can’t make any change in any system files or
properties. Usually this account is used to access the system for temporary tasks such as
suffering internet, watching movies, playing games etc. In Windows, this account is
automatically created during the installation. In Linux, if require, we have to create this
account manually after the installation.
User account vs Group account
User account is an individual identity of a user while group account is the collective
identity of all users those belong to a specific group. Grouping helps system
administrators in managing system effectively. For example, in a company all the users of
the development department may belong to a group called developers. Once group is
created, administrator can create and configure several security rules and applications to
ensure that only the users from developers group access the development department’s
resources such as SQL server, Language API, source code compiler, etc.
Group accounts are only used to manage the user accounts which are alike or require
access to a particular resource. Unlike user account, group account does not have login
capability. A user may belong to an individual group or multiple groups.
Local user account vs Network User account
User name and password of local user accounts are stored in local machine. Local user
accounts are bound with physical machine. As discussed earlier, every operating system
creates some user accounts during the installation. By default all these accounts are
considered as local user accounts.
User name and password of network user accounts are stored in a central machine usually
known as server. Unlike local user accounts, network user accounts are not bound with
any particular system. Based on configuration, a network user can login in a specific
machine or any machine of network.
Local user account and network user account both are used to access a fully featured
operating system.
Remote service account
User name and password of these accounts are stored in remote machine. These accounts
are used to remotely access a specific service or an application running in remote system.
FTP accounts, email accounts, website accounts are some examples of the remote service
accounts.
Anonymous user accounts
This account does not require a password to login. This account has the lowest privilege
among all available accounts. Usually this account type is used to share data publicly
through a service which normally requires login access.
For example, a user account is required to download anything from FTP server. If an
administrator wants to allow anyone to download the data stored in a particular folder at
FTP server, he can configure an anonymous account and set its default location to this
folder. Once anonymous account is enabled, users will be able to download all files and
folders stored in this folder.

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What is user account?

Types of User account in Computer

Types of user accounts

Super user account

Regular user account

Guest user account

User account vs Group account

Local user account vs Network User account

Remote service account

Anonymous user accounts

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