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Groups administration tutorial

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The preservation of identity that was mentioned as a desired property of a security policy for a distributed environment. This is applicable both to user IDs and to group IDs. Here is a system design that addresses both of these problems.

  1. Two domains scheme:
  2. Users should be assigned upon user creation, a User Private Group (UPG) which is a unique group ID of the same name as the user ID. This allows for a fine atomic level of group permissions to be assigned for tighter and simpler default security.

There are multiple commands that access or change group information

There are also several "exotic" commands:

File, Directory and Device permissions:

Modification of file, directory and device access is achieved with the chmod command.

Permissions may be viewed by issuing the command: ls -l file-name

Groups and group members:

Users are members of a default group. Red Hat Linux will add new users to a group of the same group name as the user name. The default group is specified in the file /etc/passwd

user-name:x:user-number:group-number:comment section:/home-directory:default-shell

user1:x:500:500:Greg:/home/user1:/bin/bash
The user id has a user system number associated with it and this is defined in /etc/passwd. The group has a group system number associated with it and this is defined in /etc/group
group-name:x:group-number:user1,user2
user1:x:500:
user2:x:501:
floppy:x:19:user1
accounting:x:600:user2
apache:x:48:
User "user1" is a member of default group "user1" and also a member of group "floppy".

Group Commands:

If using NIS, view the groups using the command: ypcat group

Switching your default group:

Use the command newgrp group-name to switch your default used in file creation or directory access. This starts a new shell. Exit to return to the previous group id. Use the ps command to see if more than one shell is active.

For example "user2" would like to create a file in the accounting directory which can be read my members of his group. First switch the default group with the command: newgrp accounting

To return to your default group issue the "exit" command. If confused, issue the "ps" command. There should only be one instance of bash, else you are in the alternate group and not the default group.

Use the command newgrp group-name file-name to change the group associated with a file. You must be a member of the group to execute the command sucessfully. (or be root)

The newgrp command logs a user into a new group by changing a user's real and effective group ID. The user remains logged in and the current directory is unchanged. The execution of newgrp always replaces the current shell with a new shell, even if the command terminates with an error (unknown group).

Any variable that is not exported is reset to null or its default value. Exported variables retain their values. System variables (such as PS1, USER, PATH and HOME), are reset to default values unless they have been exported by the system or the user.

With no operands and options, newgrp changes the user's group IDs (real and effective) back to the group specified in the user's password file entry. This is a way to exit the effect of an earlier newgrp command.

A password is demanded if the group has a password and the user is not listed in /etc/group as being a member of that group. The only way to create a password for a group is to use passwd(1), then cut and paste the password from /etc/shadow to /etc/group. Group passwords are antiquated and not often used.

Gives new login as if logged in as group member: newgrp -

Changing group ownership:

If the user creates a file, the default group association is the group id of user. If he wishes to change it to another group of which he is a member issue the command: chgrp new-group-id file-name

If the user is not a member of the group then a password is required.

Default user groups:

Users are assigned upon user creation, a User Private Group (UPG) which is a unique group ID of the same name as the user ID. This allows for a fine atomic level of group permissions to be assigned for tighter and simpler default security.

Pre-Configured system groups:

The typical Linux installation will come with two dozens existing standard groups: (See /etc/group)

Group ID GID
root 0
bin 1
daemon 2
sys 3
adm 4
tty 5
disk 6
lp 7
mem 8
kmem 9
wheel 10
mail 12
man 15
floppy 19
named 25
rpm 37
xfs 43
apache 48
ftp 50
lock 54
sshd 74
nobody 99
users 100

This is only a partial listing of the default groups. There will also be a default set of member user ID's associated with most of the groups.

Grant use of a device to system users:

The first example will be of granting access to a device, the CD-ROM. This is generally not done for regular users on a server. Server access to a CD-ROM is limited to root by default. (This example may also be applied to the diskette. Group: floppy, first floppy device: /dev/fd0)

  1. Grant mount privileges to system users
  2. Create group cdrom .
  3. Allow use of device by group cdrom .
  4. Add user to group cdrom .
  5. Grant privileges to system users to mount the device: For more information see the man pages for mount and fstab.

  6. Create group cdrom : For more information see the man pages for groupadd, groupmod and groupdel.

  7. Allow use of device by group cdrom .

  8. Add user to group cdrom : At this point, adding users to the group cdrom will grant them access to the device.

OR for a completely different method that steps 1 to 4, use the one step approach:

Using CD-ROM:

You must mount and un-mount each CD-ROM individually. Do not switch CDs without un-mounting and re-mounting the new CD. (The GNOME desktop interface has features to do this for you. Covered later)

Command method:

Note: Only root user may execute the mount command. Users must use the tool usermount.

Desktop GUI method:

After mounting the CD-ROM one can view its contents from the directory /mnt/cdrom.

OR

Group Verification

Check the group membership of a user: groups user-id

This will list all the groups to which user-id is a member.

Verification Commands:

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