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<H2><A NAME=SECTION00645000000000000000>4.4.5 Groups</A></H2>
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As we have mentioned, each user belongs to one or more groups. The
only real importance of group relationships pertains to file permissions,
as you'll recall from Section <A HREF="node124.html#secperms">3.9</A>, each file has a ``group
ownership'' and a set of group permissions which defines how users in that
group may access the file.
<P>
There are several system-defined groups such as <tt>bin</tt>, <tt>mail</tt>,
and <tt>sys</tt>. Users should not belong to any of these groups; they
are used for system file permissions. Instead, users should belong to
an individual group such as <tt>users</tt>. If you want to be cute, you
can maintain several groups of users such as <tt>student</tt>,
<tt>staff</tt>, and <tt>faculty</tt>.
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The file <tt>/etc/group</tt> contains information about groups.
The format of each line is
<P><TT> group name:password:GID:other members
<P></TT>
Some example groups might be:
<P><TT> root:*:0: <BR>
users:*:100:mdw,larry <BR>
guest:*:200: <BR>
other:*:250:kiwi
<P></TT>
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The first group, <tt>root</tt>, is a special system group reserved for
the <tt>root</tt> account. The next group, <tt>users</tt>, is for regular
users. It has a GID of 100. The users <tt>mdw</tt> and <tt>larry</tt>
are given access to this group. Remember that in <tt>/etc/passwd</tt>
each user was given a default GID. However, users may belong to
more than one group, by adding their usernames to other group lines
in <tt>/etc/group</tt>. The <tt>groups</tt> command lists what groups you
are given access to.
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The third group, <tt>guest</tt>, is for guest users, and <tt>other</tt>
is for ``other'' users. The user <tt>kiwi</tt> is given access to this
group as well.
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As you can see, the ``password'' field of <tt>/etc/group</tt>
is rarely used. It is sometimes used to set a password on group
access. This is seldom necessary. To protect users from changing into
priveleged groups (with the <tt>newgroup</tt> command), set the password
field to ``<tt>*</tt>''.
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The commands <tt>addgroup</tt> or <tt>groupadd</tt> may be used to
add groups to your system. Usually, it's easier just to add
entries in <tt>/etc/group</tt> yourself, as no other configuration
needs to be done to add a group. To delete a group, simply delete
its entry in <tt>/etc/group</tt>.
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<P><ADDRESS>
<I>Matt Welsh <BR>
mdw@sunsite.unc.edu</I>
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