man5/group.5

   1 .\" Copyright (c) 1993 Michael Haardt (michael@moria.de),
   2 .\"     Fri Apr  2 11:32:09 MET DST 1993
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  25 .\" Modified Sat Jul 24 17:06:03 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
  26 .TH GROUP 5 2018-04-30 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
  27 .SH NAME
  28 group \- user group file
  29 .SH DESCRIPTION
  30 The
  31 .I /etc/group
  32 file is a text file that defines the groups on the system.
  33 There is one entry per line, with the following format:
  34 .PP
  35 .in +4n
  36 .EX
  37 group_name:password:GID:user_list
  38 .EE
  39 .in
  40 .PP
  41 The fields are as follows:
  42 .TP 12
  43 .I group_name
  44 the name of the group.
  45 .TP
  46 .I password
  47 the (encrypted) group password.
  48 If this field is empty, no password is needed.
  49 .TP
  50 .I GID
  51 the numeric group ID.
  52 .TP
  53 .I user_list
  54 a list of the usernames that are members of this group, separated by commas.
  55 .SH FILES
  56 .I /etc/group
  57 .SH BUGS
  58 As the 4.2BSD
  59 .BR initgroups (3)
  60 man page says: no one seems to keep
  61 .I /etc/group
  62 up-to-date.
  63 .SH SEE ALSO
  64 .BR chgrp (1),
  65 .BR gpasswd (1),
  66 .BR groups (1),
  67 .BR login (1),
  68 .BR newgrp (1),
  69 .BR sg (1),
  70 .BR getgrent (3),
  71 .BR getgrnam (3),
  72 .BR gshadow (5),
  73 .BR passwd (5),
  74 .BR vigr (8)