I am a new Linux and Unix system user. How do I list the members of a group on Linux or Unix-like systems?
There are various ways to get this information on both Linux and Unix-like system.
| members command details | |
|---|---|
| Description | Show members of a group |
| Category | User Information |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Root privileges | No |
| Estimated completion time | 2m |
Purpose
Outputs members of a group.
Syntax
The basic syntax is as follows:
members groupNameHere
OR
members [options] groupNameHere
members command examples
Buy default members command display all group members on one line. Open the Terminal application and type the following command to display members of ‘webmaster’ group:
$ members webmaster
Sample outputs:
In this example, six users are output: webadmin, raj, vivek, archana, sai, and sayali. You can count total users in a group called members using wc command:
$ members webmaster | wc -w
Sample outputs:
6
Display only primary group members
Pass the -p option:
$ members -p webmaster
Display only secondary group members
Pass the -s option:
$ members -s webmaster
Query /etc/group file
Use the following grep command:
grep '^webmaster' /etc/group |
Use getent command to query groups
Use the following getent command to query group database (such as file or NIS based group database):
$ getent group | grep '^webmaster'
See also
- /etc/group file.
- members(1) Linux/Unix command man page
- Man pages – grep(1)
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