Users

This article walks you through the user roles available in Coder and creating and managing users.

Roles

Coder offers these user roles in the community edition:

A user may have one or more roles. All users have an implicit Member role that may use personal workspaces.

Security notes

A malicious Template Admin could write a template that executes commands on the host (or coder server container), which potentially escalates their privileges or shuts down the Coder server. To avoid this, run external provisioners.

In low-trust environments, we do not recommend giving users direct access to edit templates. Instead, use CI/CD pipelines to update templates with proper security scans and code reviews in place.

User status

Coder user accounts can have different status types: active, dormant, and suspended.

Active user

An active user account in Coder is the default and desired state for all users. When a user's account is marked as active, they have complete access to the Coder platform and can utilize all of its features and functionalities without any limitations. Active users can access workspaces, templates, and interact with Coder using CLI.

Dormant user

A user account is set to dormant status when they have not yet logged in, or have not logged into the Coder platform for the past 90 days. Once the user logs in to the platform, the account status will switch to active.

Dormant accounts do not count towards the total number of licensed seats in a Coder subscription, allowing organizations to optimize their license usage.

Suspended user

When a user's account is marked as suspended in Coder, it means that the account has been temporarily deactivated, and the user is unable to access the platform.

Only user administrators or owners have the necessary permissions to manage suspended accounts and decide whether to lift the suspension and allow the user back into the Coder environment. This level of control ensures that administrators can enforce security measures and handle any compliance-related issues promptly.

Similar to dormant users, suspended users do not count towards the total number of licensed seats.

Create a user

To create a user with the web UI:

1. Log in as a user admin.
2. Go to Users > New user.
3. In the window that opens, provide the username, email, and password for the user (they can opt to change their password after their initial login).
4. Click Submit to create the user.

The new user will appear in the Users list. Use the toggle to change their Roles if desired.

To create a user via the Coder CLI, run:

coder users create

When prompted, provide the username and email for the new user.

You'll receive a response that includes the following; share the instructions with the user so that they can log into Coder:

Download the Coder command line for your operating system:
https://github.com/coder/coder/releases/latest

Run  coder login https://<accessURL>.coder.app  to authenticate.

Your email is:  [email protected]
Your password is:  <redacted>

Create a workspace   coder create !

Suspend a user

User admins can suspend a user, removing the user's access to Coder.

To suspend a user via the web UI:

1. Go to Users.
2. Find the user you want to suspend, click the vertical ellipsis to the right, and click Suspend.
3. In the confirmation dialog, click Suspend.

To suspend a user via the CLI, run:

coder users suspend <username|user_id>

Confirm the user suspension by typing yes and pressing enter.

Activate a suspended user

User admins can activate a suspended user, restoring their access to Coder.

To activate a user via the web UI:

1. Go to Users.
2. Find the user you want to activate, click the vertical ellipsis to the right, and click Activate.
3. In the confirmation dialog, click Activate.

To activate a user via the CLI, run:

coder users activate <username|user_id>

Confirm the user activation by typing yes and pressing enter.

Reset a password

To reset a user's via the web UI:

1. Go to Users.
2. Find the user whose password you want to reset, click the vertical ellipsis to the right, and select Reset password.
3. Coder displays a temporary password that you can send to the user; copy the password and click Reset password.

Coder will prompt the user to change their temporary password immediately after logging in.

You can also reset a password via the CLI:

# run `coder reset-password <username> --help` for usage instructions
coder reset-password <username>

Resetting a user's password, e.g., the initial owner role-based user, only works when run on the host running the Coder control plane.

Resetting a password on Kubernetes

kubectl exec -it deployment/coder /bin/bash -n coder

coder reset-password <username>

User filtering

In the Coder UI, you can filter your users using pre-defined filters or by utilizing the Coder's filter query. The examples provided below demonstrate how to use the Coder's filter query:

• To find active users, use the filter status:active.
• To find admin users, use the filter role:admin.
• To find users have not been active since July 2023: status:active last_seen_before:"2023-07-01T00:00:00Z"

The following filters are supported:

• status - Indicates the status of the user. It can be either active, dormant or suspended.
• role - Represents the role of the user. You can refer to the TemplateRole documentation for a list of supported user roles.
• last_seen_before and last_seen_after - The last time a used has used the platform (e.g. logging in, any API requests, connecting to workspaces). Uses the RFC3339Nano format.