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7bda9154 | 1 | groupmanage(1) and user-administered groups |
2 | ------------------------------------------- | |
3 | ||
fe112c08 | 4 | There is a program `groupmanage', with which users can create their |
5 | own groups and change their group membership. | |
7bda9154 | 6 | |
7 | For a synopsis of its usage, type `groupmanage'. | |
8 | ||
9 | Each group managed by groupmanage has an entry in /etc/grouplist as | |
10 | well as in /etc/group. This contains the administrative information | |
fe112c08 | 11 | which controls who may do what to the group, in the form: |
12 | group:description:owner:manager1,manager2,manager3:home-directory | |
13 | (as many or few managers as you like). groupmanage will modify this | |
14 | file as well as /etc/group | |
7bda9154 | 15 | |
16 | Each group has a single owner user. The owner and managers are | |
17 | allowed to add and delete managers and members; only the owner may | |
18 | change the group title. Note that being a manager doesn't | |
19 | automatically make you a member of a group - you must use | |
20 | groupmanage --add to do that, and then log in again to ensure that the | |
21 | new membership affects your session. | |
22 | ||
fe112c08 | 23 | There are some restrictions on groups created by users without |
24 | administrator intervention: in the default configuration the group | |
25 | name must have the form <username>-<groupname>, except that if | |
26 | <username> is more than 4 characters only the first 4 need be given. | |
27 | All groups created by a user have that user's name in the title. Any | |
28 | one user may not create more than 5 groups for themselves. | |
7bda9154 | 29 | |
30 | All group names must be less than 8 characters long, and a group once | |
fe112c08 | 31 | created can not easily be deleted because revoking access to a uid or |
32 | gid on unix is very hard. Groups can be renamed with assistance from | |
33 | the system administrator. | |
7bda9154 | 34 | |
35 | For more formal groups (for example, those corresponding to particular | |
36 | organisations, or which interact with system software eg mail | |
fe112c08 | 37 | delivery) should probably be created by the sysadmin on request and |
38 | need not heed these restrictions; it might also be useful to create a | |
39 | home directory for shared files. | |
7bda9154 | 40 | |
41 | When working with shared files, you should not remove (and should | |
42 | reinstate, if necessary) the setgid bit on the shared directories, and | |
43 | leave your umask set to allow group write (the default is 002). | |
44 | You'll then find that you're able to work in group filespace areas | |
45 | without having to ask other users to chmod files, or having to type | |
46 | incantations to switch between working on shared files and your | |
47 | personal files. | |
48 | ||
711a0748 | 49 | |
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50 | userv-utils are |
51 | Copyright 1996-2013 Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> | |
52 | Copyright 1998 David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> | |
53 | Copyright 1999,2003 | |
54 | Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge | |
55 | Copyright 2010 Tony Finch <fanf@dotat.at> | |
711a0748 | 56 | |
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57 | All the utilities here are free software; you can redistribute it and/or |
58 | modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by | |
59 | the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your | |
60 | option) any later version. | |
711a0748 | 61 | |
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62 | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but |
63 | WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of | |
64 | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU | |
65 | General Public License for more details. | |
711a0748 | 66 | |
9028e234 IJ |
67 | You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License |
68 | along with userv-utils; if not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/. |