Set up user for running server program (like www-data is for apache)

Question

I am running Ubuntu 9.10 and would like to set up a few custom server programs. I don't think I should be running them as root, and I have no need to. How do I create a user and group that is similar to www-data for apache?

Thanks,

Answer 1

On a Debian/Ubuntu system usually most install scripts use a command like this to create a service account.

sudo adduser --system --group {username}

Answer 2

sudo useradd -r username