Hi,
typically you don't have the same users in the author system as you would have on the publish instance. Also, the ACL's are very different for content authors and users on the publish system.
Replication is possible for groups and users, but because of the above, it's not really used that much. In your case I'd suggest: Create system user on localhost using crx explorer, Import into maven project, then deploy to other instances.
Regards,
Opkar