Change PATH based on group membership

[David Greenberg_1]

Is there a generally accepted way to change a user's PATH based upon his group memberships? I could add lines to each user's .profile, or do something like this in /etc/profile:

[ grep -q "^GRP:[:,]USRNAME[,$] /etc/groups ] && PATH=$PATH:/blah/blah/blah

Both of these seem kludgy to me.

Any better ideas floating around out there?

Thanks!

Dave (SOL in Lawrence)

[harry d brown jr]

You could execute different profiles but your method is easier to maintain.

live free or die
harry

[Jordan Bean · Accepted solution]

I'm concidering using something like this in /etc/profile:

PATH=$(cat /etc/PATH)
# append paths per group membership
for g in $(id -Gn)
do
case $g in
(emc) PATH=${PATH}:/usr/symcli/bin; MANPATH=${MANPATH}:/usr/symcli/man;;
(oracle) PATH=${PATH}:/usr/oracle/bin;;
(lawson) PATH=${PATH}:/usr/lawson/bin;;
esac
done

[Wodisch]

Hi Dave,

not really elegant, but simple:

Different directories containing soft-links to the codefiles permitted for each group.
Then give read/execute permission on that directory only to that group.
Finally put all these directories into $PATH (but only these).

FWIW,
Wodisch

[David Greenberg_1]

I will go with Jordan's method, with one addition: Since this will fail in single user mode (/usr/bin/id wont be available), I'll put the code inside an if [-x /usr/bin/id] statement.

Thanks to all for your help.