about
groups
Users
can be listed in groups. Groups allow you to set permissions on the
group level instead of having to set permissions for every individual user.
Every Unix or Linux distribution will have a graphical tool to manage groups.
Novice users are advised to use this graphical tool. More experienced users can
use command line tools to manage users, but be careful: Some distributions do
not allow the mixed use of GUI and CLI tools to manage groups Senior
administrators can edit the relevant files directly with vi or vim.
groupadd
Groups
can be created with the groupadd command. The example below shows the
creation
of five (empty) groups.
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
groupadd tennis
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
groupadd football
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
groupadd snooker
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
groupadd formula1
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
groupadd salsa
/etc/group
Users
can be a member of several groups. Group membership is defined by the /etc/
group
file.
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
tail -5 /etc/group
tennis:x:1006:
football:x:1007:
snooker:x:1008:
formula1:x:1009:
salsa:x:1010:
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
The
first field is the group's name. The second field is the group's (encrypted)
password
(can be empty). The third field is the group identification or GID. The
fourth
field is the list of members, these groups have no members.
usermod
Group
membership can be modified with the useradd or usermod command.
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
usermod -a -G tennis inge
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
usermod -a -G tennis katrien
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
usermod -a -G salsa katrien
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
usermod -a -G snooker sandra
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
usermod -a -G formula1 annelies
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
tail -5 /etc/group
tennis:x:1006:inge,katrien
football:x:1007:
snooker:x:1008:sandra
formula1:x:1009:annelies
salsa:x:1010:katrien
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
Be
careful when using usermod to add users to groups. By default, the usermod
command
will remove the user from every group of which he is a member if the
group
is
not listed in the command! Using the -a (append) switch prevents this
behaviour.
groupmod
You
can change the group name with the groupmod command.
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
groupmod -n darts snooker
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
tail -5 /etc/group
tennis:x:1006:inge,katrien
football:x:1007:
formula1:x:1009:annelies
salsa:x:1010:katrien
darts:x:1008:Sandra
groupdel
You
can permanently remove a group with the groupdel command.
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
groupdel tennis
root@linuxforfreshers:~#
groups
A
user can type the groups command to see a list of groups where the user
belongs to.
[root@linuxforfreshers
~]$ groups
harry
sports
[root@linuxforfreshers
~]$
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