[2195] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Fwd: A question about how groups get handled
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg Hudson)
Mon Apr 3 16:17:49 2000
Message-Id: <200004032017.QAA22376@small-gods.mit.edu>
To: tjm@MIT.EDU
Cc: release-team@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 03 Apr 2000 15:57:48 EDT."
<v04220807b50ea66151af@[18.177.1.78]>
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2000 16:17:33 -0400
From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
'allo. I'm probably the most qualified to answer your question.
> 1. On my Sun, it appears that the groups file contains 14 entries.
> Is this 14 limit the same on all Athena platforms?
Yup.
> 2. In picking the 14 entries out of the 20 groups I'm in, how did it
> decide which 14 to use?
Well, first it looks at the existing /etc/group file on the machine,
and adds you to any groups you belong to (without going over 14, of
course). Then, if it hasn't hit 14 yet, it adds entries to
/etc/groups starting with the primary group ("mit" for most users) and
going in order along the Hesiod group list (the result of "hesinfo tjm
grplist").
So, on a workstation with a clean /etc/group file, it's the first
groups in your list; on something like a dialup it's a little less
predictable.
> 3. Are there any particular characteristics of a list (hidden,
> visible, active, inactive) that would affect how it's handled for
> the /etc/groups file?
Only whether or not it's a group at all.
