Date: Thu, 30 May 96 16:18:56 EDT From: eischen@vigrid.com (Daniel Eischen) To: kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de, michaelv@HeadCandy.com Cc: freebsd-hackers@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: newgrp(1) Message-ID: <9605302018.AA11531@pcnet1.pcnet.com>
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> > The newgrp command changes the primary group identification of the current > > shell process to group. You remain logged in and the current directory is > > unchanged, but calculations of access permissions to files are performed > > with respect to the primary group ID. > > This is a SysV-ism. If I'm not mistaken, SysV needs this because you > can only be in one group at a time. This means you need to constantly > newgrp to change group access permissions if you're moving among > multiple groups. > > BSD allows you to be in multiple groups at the same time, so makes > this command pretty much unnecessary. > > This is how I understand it, anyway. I'm sure someone will correct me > if I'm wrong... The problem is not when you want to reference files that already exist, but when you want to create files with a specific group so that only others in that group can reference them. We use the newgrp command on our HP systems for various projects with multiple developers. Each project usually usually has at least one group associated with it. By using newgrp before we start any processes that can create files, we're assured that the files have the correct permissions (group). GUI-based systems, like Interleaf, Atria ClearCase, compilers, etc, can then be used to create files with the correct group. This is really important when you're not granted root permissions on the systems; you can't hunt around and manually set the group on all files in the project directory because you don't own them. Unless there's another way of doing this in FreeBSD, I'd like to see the newgrp command brought in. My $.02. Dan Eischen eischen@pcnet.com
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