From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Nov 22 10:32:20 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 33A3837B401 for ; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:32:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from sccrmhc01.attbi.com (sccrmhc01.attbi.com [204.127.202.61]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 87BBE43EA9 for ; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:32:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([12.242.158.67]) by sccrmhc01.attbi.com (sccrmhc01) with ESMTP id <20021122183217001004pi3je>; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 18:32:17 +0000 Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.6/8.12.5) with ESMTP id gAMIX0d8023318 for ; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:33:01 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.6/8.12.5/Submit) id gAMIWs1k023315; Fri, 22 Nov 2002 10:32:54 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) X-Authentication-Warning: localhost.localdomain: jojo set sender to swear@attbi.com using -f To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: passwords in /etc/group References: <000701c29193$0f4a68f0$0a2da8c0@sem> <20021121212019.GA47022@raggedclown.net> From: swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: 22 Nov 2002 10:32:54 -0800 In-Reply-To: <20021121212019.GA47022@raggedclown.net> Message-ID: <5d1y5da209.y5d@localhost.localdomain> Lines: 19 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > What purpose do they serve ? > A System Manager can put the users in the appropriate groups > for their work. > I have never seen them used on any Unix system I have worked on, > and I seem to recall from some ancient documentation that they > are more trouble than they are worth. (Please put blank lines between paragraphs or use bullets or indentation or something. This isn't a Poetry 101 forum. Thanks.) IRIX and Linux (and HP-UX?) had a "newgrp" command for changing your current GID (eg, "gid" from "id -g"). I've forgotten, but I suppose "newgrp" used the group passwords if they were defined. Users could change their GID to work in different projects. I'm not sure why FreeBSD doesn't have the feature, but I suppose someone thought that the SUIDDIR feature was sufficient. But I don't know what it would hurt to have the feature which needn't be used or could easily be disabled. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message