Adding Users to Cygwin

Cygwin users have to first have a Windows account.

1. Create a new user. The permissions you assign to this user are the “real” permissions on things you access through Cygwin.

2. Once the Windows user is created, you need to tell Cygwin about it with this command:

mkpasswd -l -u the_new_windows_user_you_created >> /etc/passwd

This creates the appropriate user in the /etc/passwd file, which, like regular Linux installs, shows the available users on the install. Notice the Windows user UID is one of the things that shows up in the line in this file – Cygwin tells Windows “this UID wants to do thus-and-such”.