group (5) - Linux Manuals

group: user group file

NAME

group - user group file

DESCRIPTION

The /etc/group file is a text file that defines the groups on the system. There is one entry per line, with the following format:

group_name:password:GID:user_list

The fields are as follows:

group_name
the name of the group.
password
the (encrypted) group password. If this field is empty, no password is needed.
GID
the numeric group ID.
user_list
a list of the usernames that are members of this group, separated by commas.

FILES

/etc/group

BUGS

As the 4.2BSD initgroups(3) man page says: no one seems to keep /etc/group up-to-date.

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

SEE ALSO

chgrp(1), gpasswd(1), groups(1), login(1), newgrp(1), sg(1), getgrent(3), getgrnam(3), gshadow(5), passwd(5), vigr(8)