/etc/group is a text file which defines the groups to which users belong under Linux and UNIX operating system. Under Unix / Linux multiple users can be categorized into groups. Unix file system permissions are organized into three classes, user, group, and others. The use of groups allows additional abilities to be delegated in an organized fashion, such as access to disks, printers, and other peripherals. This method, amongst others, also enables the Superuser to delegate some administrative tasks to normal users.
/etc/group file
It stores group information or defines the user groups i.e. it defines the groups to which users belong. There is one entry per line, and each line has the following format (all fields are separated by a colon (:)
Where,
- group_name: It is the name of group. If you run ls -l command, you will see this name printed in the group field.
- Password: Generally password is not used, hence it is empty/blank. It can store encrypted password. This is useful to implement privileged groups.
- Group ID (GID): Each user must be assigned a group ID. You can see this number in your /etc/passwd file.
- Group List: It is a list of user names of users who are members of the group. The user names, must be separated by commas.
More About User Groups
Users on Linux and UNIX systems are assigned to one or more groups for the following reasons:
- To share files or other resource with a small number of users
- Ease of user management
- Ease of user monitoring
- Group membership is perfect solution for large Linux (UNIX) installation.
- Group membership gives you or your user special access to files and directories or devices which are permitted to that group
(Fig.01: Understanding groups)
User tom is part of both ‘Web developers’ and ‘Sales’ group. So tom can access files belongs to both groups.
Task: View Current Groups Settings
Type any one of the following command:
$ less /etc/group
OR use the more command:
$ more /etc/group
OR use the cat command:
$ more /etc/group
Task: Find Out the Groups a User Is In
Type the following groups command:
$ groups {username}
$ groups
$ groups vivek
Sample outputs:
vivek : vivek adm dialout cdrom plugdev lpadmin netdev admin sambashare libvirtd
Task: Print user / group Identity
Use the id command to display information about the given user.
Display only the group ID, enter:
Use the id command:
$ id -g
$ id -g user
$ id -g vivek
OR
$ id -gn vivek
Display only the group ID and the supplementary groups, enter:
$ id -G
$ id -G user
$ id -G vivek
OR
$ id -Gn vivek
- Understanding /etc/passwd File Format
- Understanding /etc/shadow file
- Understanding /etc/group file
27 comment
On the money. The detail was clear and straight forward. I quickly found the answer to the problem that we were facing in our production test environment.
Clear and good.
wonderful
perfect!! just what i need ;)
Great, Thanks!
But one more question remains:
Does /etc/group allow wildcards (probably not) or is it possible to allow all group members of one group to be part of another?
I have the problem, that different linux installations (which are all needed unfortunately) provide different groups and user authentification is central from NIS …
Will a blank line in the /etc/group file cause a system read problem? I know on some UNIX platforms, a blank line in the password file causes problems. Thanx
It may cause a problem. It is better to remove a blank line. But I never tested it… YMMV.
Can a group be a member of another group?
What is the default permission for /etc/group
If I add my Group ID or Account name to admin/root in /etc/group, will it work. If not how can I do the same.
But why exactly do some in my group file have and x, or nothing at all in the password field? What’s the purpose?
how can i allow the root user of another machine to view the files that are only set to be viewed by the users that are in /etc/group which is set on another machine?
for example can we just add root@host to my nis group so when that machine comes up in initialization access those files and execute them?
are there any commands that can show / list all members of a group (using hp-ux)? thanks
Good, but did not mention what the ‘x’ means in the password.
The ‘x’ means that password is stored in /etc/gshadow, not in /etc/group.. It’s the same way as in /etc/passwd, if you gave x in password field, it means that the user’s password is stored in /etc/shadow.
Very good explanation!!
Can I ask a very simple question? Usually, the owner of a file is also a member of the group which has ‘special’ access as defined by the permissions. If the owner is not a member of the group, can this lead to any difficulties? I do not think that their would be any problems, but I have never seen this written explicitly anywhere.
Anyone know the answer?
Barry
Perfect!
It is possible to change only the group id? if yes, how we can do this?
thx
It was easy to learn and straight on the point saving my time. Thank you :)
How do I comment out a line in /etc/group and /etc/passwd ? is putting a # mark at the start of the line going to do it?
can we break the password which is in enscrypted format
No, can not break but can change with proper permissions.
in /etc/groups file,
can i have multiple entries like this?
wheel:x:10:root,john
wheel:x:10:root,mike
Instead of two lines in your example, why not just do this?
wheel:x:10:root,john,mike
I was looking at this thread to see if something like crossing user permissions was okay. For example, this makes each user a member of the other user. Helpful for managing a media center from a different account.
media:x:1000:don
don:x:1001:media
partially my question is answered. but there is more question. once i change group who has privilege to access my file but how the access my file?
what will be happen if the group has encrypted password?