The group ID number (GID) is not specifically hard-coded to a particular group. It's designated by the entries in the file /etc/group
. On my Fedora 19 system, for example:
$ head -15 /etc/group
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:
daemon:x:2:
sys:x:3:
adm:x:4:logcheck
tty:x:5:
disk:x:6:
lp:x:7:
mem:x:8:
kmem:x:9:
wheel:x:10:saml
cdrom:x:11:
mail:x:12:
man:x:15:
dialout:x:18:
While on an Ubuntu system I have:
$ head -15 /etc/group
root:x:0:
daemon:x:1:
bin:x:2:
sys:x:3:
adm:x:4:manny
tty:x:5:
disk:x:6:
lp:x:7:
mail:x:8:
news:x:9:
uucp:x:10:
man:x:12:
proxy:x:13:
kmem:x:15:
dialout:x:20:
But these are not set in stone. The numbers are what gets stored when files/directories are written to the filesystem. This file is what takes those numbers and display their corresponding name when you use commands such as ls -l
.
I would simply make the wheel group another entry in that file, and I'd use a command to add it. You can typically add entries using the addgroup
or groupadd
commands.
Why is UUCP 10 then?
This ordering is a by-product of when the system was either constructed (**NOTE: I'm talking about when these files were constructed by a particular distro's authors) or when the system went through the process of performing package adds/installs using its package manager (i.e. APT, RPM, pacman, etc.).
References