GROUP

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (5)
Updated: 2009-02-23
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NAME

group - user group file  

DESCRIPTION

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

group_name:passwd:GID:user_list

The field descriptions are:

group_name
the name of the group.
password
the (encrypted) group password. If this field is empty, no password is needed.
GID
the numerical group ID.
user_list
a list of the usernames that are members of this group, separated by commas.
 

FILES

/etc/group  

BUGS

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

SEE ALSO

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

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.22 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/.