The group tag has no wiki summary.
50
votes
5answers
10k views
Where did the “wheel” group get its name?
The wheel group on *nix computers typically refers to the group with some sort of root-like access. I've heard that on some *nixes it's the group of users with the right to run su, but on Linux that ...
27
votes
3answers
25k views
How do I remove a user from a group?
Which command should I use to remove a user from a group in Debian?
When adding a user to a group, it can be done with:
usermod -a -G group user
However, I could not find a similar command ...
11
votes
2answers
288 views
Groups differ from the local ones when logging in remotely
We store our users in LDAP, alongside some groups that have meaning across different systems (organizational roles including wheel). There are also groups local to workstations, e.g. audio or video ...
10
votes
2answers
3k views
How to apply changes of newly added user groups without needing to reboot?
Assume I'm logged in with user takpar:
takpar@skyspace:/$
As root, I've added takpar as a member of group webdev using:
# usermod -a -G webdev takpar
But it seems it has not been applied. because ...
9
votes
3answers
7k views
Make all new files in a directory accessible to a group
Suppose I have two users A and B and a group G and a folder foo, both users are members of G (using linux and ext3).
If I save as user A a file under foo, the permissions are: -rw-r--r-- A A. ...
8
votes
2answers
4k views
Why is Debian not creating the 'wheel' group by default?
It appears to be Unix tradition that a wheel group is created automatically, but Debian (and children, naturally) doesn't do so. Is there a rationale somewhere? Where else have you seen this tradition ...
8
votes
2answers
13k views
How can I change a user's default group in Linux?
Being new to Linux administration, I'm a little confused about the following commands:
useradd
usermod
groupadd
groupmod
I've just finished reading the user administration book in the Linux/Unix ...
7
votes
1answer
704 views
In /etc/group what is the meaning of the second field?
A sample /etc/group file contains the following entries:
root:*:0:
adm:!:4:logcheck
antoine:x:1000:
The man pages I've read (Debian & OSX) says the second field is to store a group password. ...
7
votes
1answer
276 views
What is the purpose of `/etc/group-`
On a standard Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) there is usually /etc/group and /etc/group-, where the second one is only readable by root.
man group only describes /etc/group.
Thus my question: What ...
6
votes
1answer
4k views
6
votes
2answers
2k views
I can't delete a file that I have write permissions for as a group member
$ touch testfile
$ chmod g+w testfile
$ sudo adduser user2 user1
$ stat -c'%a %A' testfile
664 -rw-rw-r--
$ su user2
Password:
$ groups
user2 user1
$ rm testfile
rm: cannot remove `testfile': ...
6
votes
2answers
3k views
GID, current, primary, supplementary, effective and real group IDs?
The following links discuss these concepts in different contexts. I have read their definitions, but I still can't tell how they are related, or if some of them are just the same.
Current group ID
...
5
votes
3answers
10k views
Change gid of a specific group
I'd like to change group id of a specific group. There are so may solution for changing the gid of a file or directories. But that's not what I want. Is there a way to do that?
5
votes
5answers
174 views
Changing Unix group for files
I have a file that a colleague and I are editing together, on a Unix system. We are using Unix group permissions to edit it. We have one Unix group that we are both members of. Whenever I save the ...
5
votes
2answers
2k views
What are the allowed group names for groupadd?
I followed these instructions to build Shadow, which provides the groupadd command. I am now getting an error when trying this:
$ groupadd automake1.10
groupadd: 'automake1.10' is not a valid group ...
5
votes
5answers
385 views
Why is it recommended to create a group and user for some applications?
Most of the time, when installing a program from source it is recommended to create a new user and a new group and give /usr/local/<myapp> the recently created user and group ownership.
Why is ...
5
votes
1answer
74 views
assigning files of a group to another one
I want to delete a group using groupdel command, but before doing this I want to assign all files belonging to this group to another one is there a way to do this?
I know that I can use find / -gid ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
linux permission, group member cannot write even with write permission
The logged in user is a member of a group that has a write permission on a folder. But when this user is trying to write something, "permission is denied".
The log below summarizes the question:
...
4
votes
2answers
360 views
Why don't /etc/group and /etc/password match?
OK this is a basic question showing my ignorance of sysadmin matters...
Looking at the UNIX system I work on, my /etc/passwd entry says
my_name:x:uid:gid:comments:home directory:login shell
Then ...
4
votes
2answers
3k views
How to add write permissions for a group?
I changed permissions of a file (chmod g+w testfile) and running ls -l testfile gives:
-rwxrwxr-x 1 user1 user1 0 2011-01-24 20:36 testfile
I then added a user to that group ("/etc/group" has ...
4
votes
1answer
310 views
Why do I need to use newgrp or su (or logout and login again) to have new group memberships applied?
What is it that makes new group membership require a new login (or new login shell as started by su or newgrp) to be visible?
Just running another bash (or whatever other shell) instance with --login ...
4
votes
2answers
220 views
Group ID 501 cannot be found
A file in a directory has a Group ID "501"
After checking /etc/group, Group ID "501" was not found
how is that possible ?
4
votes
2answers
3k views
Add all users in one group to another group?
I have some users in a group called aa and I need to give them the rights to write to a folder which is currently tomcat:tomcatdeploy.
The straightforward way to do this is to add all the users to ...
4
votes
2answers
978 views
Problem while running “newgrp” command in script
I want to change the working group in my script. So I wrote a line newgrp test_grp1 in my script. But my script is automatically exited after running this line. Are there any solution to overcome this ...
4
votes
1answer
875 views
addgroup vs groupadd
I happen to know there is a slight difference between adduser and useradd.
(i.e., adduser has additional features to useradd, such as creating a home directory.)
Then what is the relation between ...
4
votes
1answer
3k views
what is 'nogroup' group's purpose
When I list al groups I see one called 'nogroup'. What is this for? Is it supposed to be least privileged one or something? I'm using ubuntu 11.04.
4
votes
3answers
184 views
Can't read a file although it's in my group and permissions for group read are set
I encounter a strange problem on a unix/linux machine:
I'm member of a group, let's call it group A and a certain file (which has a different owner) belongs to group A as well. The permissions of ...
3
votes
3answers
293 views
Escaping argument in bash script?
I'm writing a bash script wherein I want to check that one of the arguments passed to it is a valid group.
I have the line
if [ `grep -c -e '\b$2\b' /etc/group` -eq 0 ]; then
echo "Error: $2 is ...
3
votes
3answers
2k views
Reset all groups to default
I recently set up some groups and users on my machine, and now I want to remove all those users and all those groups. Somewhat stupidly, I read on an Ubuntu forum or something like that that it was ...
3
votes
3answers
100 views
how to login as a member of specific group
i want to login as a member of non primary group to create files whose owner as a member of non primary group of current user.
-rwxr-xr-x 2 gowtham gowtham 4096 Sep 5 14:48 defaultNewFile
...
3
votes
1answer
619 views
Group within group file permissions
I tried finding this on here, but couldn't so sorry if it's a duplicate.
Say I have 2 groups and a user: group1, group2, user1
with the following structure: group1 is a member of group 2, user1 is a ...
3
votes
3answers
143 views
When adding a user to a new group when does the user group permissions become active when its a /nologin user?
I have a service level account to run my webserver, and this user is setup with /sbin/nologin.
Normally when you add a user to a group you must logout and login to use the new group permissions.
...
3
votes
1answer
75 views
Can I add to my groups in the current (shell) process?
If I add myself to a group, it applies only to newly launched processes. Actually it's more restricted than that; it seems to apply only to new logins. I'm not sure what the exact mechanism is, but ...
3
votes
1answer
81 views
In my secure log there is a new group added that Im unsure about after adding semanage
I installed semanage onto my CentOS 6.2 box and I was going through my secure log after the install and noticed this entry:
Aug 31 22:12:17 xxxx groupadd[12929]: group added to /etc/group: ...
3
votes
1answer
661 views
Adding kill to a sudoers group
How can I give permissions in sudoers such that each member of a group is able to kill the process owned by another member of the group?
Scenario: I have two users -- bill and dev-cron -- who are ...
3
votes
2answers
534 views
Using umask to set group permissions
A long time ago an old friend showed me a way to use an octal or hex umask with a group I think using /etc/profile. I'm not sure.
I'm trying to create group on Debian so that every member of that ...
3
votes
2answers
67 views
How to run script with the privileges expected of the script's general “intended user”?
During the development of a script, some bugs remain "latent" until the script is run by a different user. (For example, the script may access a file that only the person developing the script has ...
2
votes
2answers
51 views
how to initialize `/etc/group`?
After editing /etc/group, How this update starts functioning without restarting the system in Unix?
Is there any command we need to run?
2
votes
3answers
509 views
What does it mean to be in group 0?
Several users in a system I inherited have their group set to 0 in /etc/passwd. What does that mean? Do they essentially get full root privileges?
The system is running CentOS 5, and the users ...
2
votes
3answers
1k views
How to configure permissions to allow file access?
I'm running Wowza Media Server on my server as "root". The problem is that all files created (recorded) by Wowza are "root:root" and aren't writable, editable, or deletable by any other users. How can ...
2
votes
1answer
55 views
File owner must belong to file group?
I have a rather simplistic understanding of file permissions on *nix systems. I understand that there is a file owner and file group, but is there a hard and fast rule on whether the said file owner ...
2
votes
1answer
3k views
Changing user and group ID system wide (including file system attributes)?
(this question possibly related to Linux: simulating/masking user ownership upon mount of 'external' partitions? - Stack Overflow)
I typically use Ubuntu (currently 11.04) as my desktop OS; let's say ...
2
votes
2answers
32 views
CentOS can't remove user from group
Asked and answered many times, but I can't get it working!!!
(On CentOS) I have the user userA and I want to remove it from group sftponly.
#groups userA
userA : sftponly
#id -Gn userA
sftponly
...
2
votes
1answer
114 views
Delete every users from a group
I search a clean way to delete every users from the 'sudo' group. On several distributions the user created during the installation process has sudo rights, I don't want this. I search for an ...
2
votes
1answer
617 views
How to ensure that anonymous FTP has been disabled on a Solaris 10 system?
What line in which configuration files in the /etc/ftpd directory do I have to check to ensure that anonymous FTP has been disabled?
From my understanding now, to ensure that anonymous FTP is ...
2
votes
1answer
110 views
Why does newgrp change my PS1 and how to prevent it?
I have a customized PS1 to show several parameters. When I switch to a different group using newgrp, it switched my PS1 to default ($) and that is annoying. The default remains even when I switch ...
2
votes
1answer
391 views
How do I set permissions for a directory so that files and directories created under it maintain group write permissions? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Make all new files in a directory accessible to a group
I have a directory in which collaborative files / directories are stored. Say directory abc is owned by root and ...
2
votes
2answers
453 views
su user fails with “grep: /var/cpanel/users/user: Permission denied”
I just did something pretty simple. Given a user user, I modified his user id, primary group's id, and added him to a new group in order to make my server use the same uid and gid as another server ...
2
votes
2answers
327 views
Can I share a folder inside my home directory with another user?
Can I share a folder inside my home directory with another user?
I have two users on a system, agent and daemon. An external server connects as agent and rsyncs files to ~agent/incoming
I want ...
2
votes
3answers
160 views
Group information reported wrong for a specific user
I have a problem on a server I manage. An account (specifically, my account) does not seem to have the correct groups. I think the problem is most easily demonstrated by looking at the following ...
