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28 .\" From: @(#)group.5 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
29 .\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man5/group.5,v 1.29 2006/02/18 16:48:56 brueffer Exp $
30 .\" $DragonFly: src/share/man/man5/group.5,v 1.6 2007/04/07 19:29:52 swildner Exp $
32 .Dd September 29, 1994
37 .Nd format of the group permissions file
41 file is the local source of group information.
42 It can be used in conjunction with the Hesiod domain
43 `group', and the NIS maps `group.byname' and `group.bygid',
49 consists of newline separated
51 records, one per group, containing four colon
54 These fields are as follows:
55 .Bl -tag -width password -offset indent -compact
63 The group's decimal ID.
68 Lines whose first non-whitespace character is a pound-sign (#)
69 are comments, and are ignored.
70 Blank lines that consist
71 only of spaces, tabs or newlines are also ignored.
75 field is the group name used for granting file access to users
76 who are members of the group.
79 field is the number associated with the group name.
80 They should both be unique across the system (and often
81 across a group of systems) since they control file access.
88 This field is rarely used
89 and an asterisk is normally placed in it rather than leaving it blank.
92 field contains the names of users granted the privileges of
94 The member names are separated by commas without spaces or newlines.
95 A user is automatically in a group if that group was specified
98 entry and does not need to be added to that group in the
102 .\" When the system reads the file
104 .\" the fields are read into the structure
108 .\" .Bd -literal -offset indent
110 .\" char *gr_name; /* group name */
111 .\" char *gr_passwd; /* group password */
112 .\" int gr_gid; /* group id */
113 .\" char **gr_mem; /* group members */
117 There are various limitations which are explained in
118 the function where they occur; see section
121 In older implementations,
122 a group cannot have more than 200 members.
123 The maximum line length of
126 Longer lines will be skipped.
127 This limitation disappeared in
129 Older binaries that are statically linked, depend on old
132 binaries in compatibility mode
133 may still have this limit.
135 .Bl -tag -width /etc/group -compact
144 .Xr nsswitch.conf 5 ,
152 file format appeared in
154 Support for comments first appeared in
159 command does not change the