Groups in groups in the /etc/group file

[Jayne Krygier]

Is it possible to add a group in a group in the /etc/group file

For Example:
groupa::100:me
groupb::200:you
groupc::300:groupa,groupb

[Wieslaw Krajewski]

Hi,

This is impossible

Rgds.

[Bruce Regittko_1]

Hi,

Nope, can't put a group in a group. See the man page for the group(4) file for more information.

--Bruce

[boley janowski]

you can not set groups up to call other groups, you can test this by pretty easy by define the group with another group such as

users::20:root,sys
sys::3:root,uucp

with sys being the group, and after saving the /etc/group. at the command line type "groups uucp" provided uucp is not stated specifically under group users it will return only sys. this can cause confusion because in many cases there are users that are also groups such as root,lp,bin. hope this helps.

[Vincenzo Restuccia]

Impossible,if you want verify it with SAM.

[Tim D Fulford]

As far as groups being members of groups no can do. Obviously you expand it to be the members, tedious but necessary.

However, just one extra thing here, make sure /etc/logingroup is linked to /etc/group otherwise the users in say groupa will need to loginto groupa if it is not their primary group!

link the group & login group file
# ln -s /etc/group /etc/logingroup

Check it
#ls -l /etc/*group
-r--r--r-- 1 bin bin 310 Apr 30 10:43 /etc/group
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root sys 10 May 2 13:21 /etc/logingroup@ -> /etc/group

Cheers

Tim

[MANOJ SRIVASTAVA]

Hi Jayne

Let us go to basics ,ie a collection of user form a group . So infact you can have a group with a collection of groups however you can have the groupC with all the memebers of groupA and groupB.

Manoj

[MANOJ SRIVASTAVA]

OOps sorry it should read as :

So infact you can not have a group with a collection of groups however you can have the groupC with all the memebers of groupA and groupB.