NAME | DESCRIPTION | FILES | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

The Linux Programming Interface

GROUP(5)                      Linux Programmer's Manual                      GROUP(5)

NAME         top

       group - user group file

DESCRIPTION         top

       The /etc/group file is a text file that defines the groups on the system.
       There is one entry per line, with the following format:

              group_name:password:GID:user_list

       The fields are as follows:

       group_name  the name of the group.

       password    the (encrypted) group password.  If this field is empty, no
                   password is needed.

       GID         the numeric group ID.

       user_list   a list of the usernames that are members of this group, separated
                   by commas.

FILES         top

       /etc/group

BUGS         top

       As the 4.2BSD initgroups(3) man page says: No-one seems to keep /etc/group up-
       to-date.

SEE ALSO         top

       login(1), newgrp(1), getgrent(3), getgrnam(3), passwd(5)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 3.32 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
       at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                                 2010-10-21                             GROUP(5)

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