group(5) [mojave man page]

GROUP(5)						      BSD File Formats Manual							  GROUP(5)

NAME

     group -- format of the group permissions file

DESCRIPTION

     The file </etc/group> consists of newline separated ASCII records, one per group, containing four colon ':' separated fields. These fields
     are as follows:
	   group     Name of the group.
	   passwd    Group's encrypted password.
	   gid	     The group's decimal ID.
	   member    Group members.

     The group field is the group name used for granting file access to users who are members of the group.  The gid field is the number associ-
     ated with the group name.	They should both be unique across the system (and often across a group of systems) since they control file access.
     The passwd field is an optional encrypted password.  This field is rarely used and an asterisk is normally placed in it rather than leaving
     it blank.	The member field contains the names of users granted the privileges of group.  The member names are separated by commas without
     spaces or newlines.  A user is automatically in a group if that group was specified in their /etc/passwd entry and does not need to be added
     to that group in the /etc/group file.

INTERACTION WITH DIRECTORY SERVICES

     Processes generally find group records using one of the getgrent(3) family of functions.  On Mac OS X, these functions interact with the
     DirectoryService(8) daemon, which reads the /etc/group file as well as searching other directory information services to determine groups and
     group membership.

FILES

     /etc/group

SEE ALSO

     passwd(1), setgroups(2), crypt(3), getgrent(3), initgroups(3), passwd(5), DirectoryService(8)

BUGS

     The passwd(1) command does not change the group passwords.

HISTORY

     A group file format appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

Mac OS X							   July 18, 1995							  Mac OS X

GSHADOW(5)                                                 File Formats and Conversions                                                 GSHADOW(5)

NAME

       gshadow - shadowed group file

DESCRIPTION

       /etc/gshadow contains the shadowed information for group accounts.

       This file must not be readable by regular users if password security is to be maintained.

       Each line of this file contains the following colon-separated fields:

       group name
           It must be a valid group name, which exist on the system.

       encrypted password
           Refer to crypt(3) for details on how this string is interpreted.

           If the password field contains some string that is not a valid result of crypt(3), for instance ! or *, users will not be able to use a
           unix password to access the group (but group members do not need the password).

           The password is used when a user who is not a member of the group wants to gain the permissions of this group (see newgrp(1)).

           This field may be empty, in which case only the group members can gain the group permissions.

           A password field which starts with an exclamation mark means that the password is locked. The remaining characters on the line
           represent the password field before the password was locked.

           This password supersedes any password specified in /etc/group.

       administrators
           It must be a comma-separated list of user names.

           Administrators can change the password or the members of the group.

           Administrators also have the same permissions as the members (see below).

       members
           It must be a comma-separated list of user names.

           Members can access the group without being prompted for a password.

           You should use the same list of users as in /etc/group.

FILES

       /etc/group
           Group account information.

       /etc/gshadow
           Secure group account information.

SEE ALSO

       gpasswd(5), group(5), grpck(8), grpconv(8), newgrp(1).

shadow-utils 4.5                                                    01/25/2018                                                          GSHADOW(5)