Computer Old Farts Forum
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Grant Taylor via COFF <coff@minnie.tuhs.org>
To: The Unix Heritage Society <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>,
	COFF <coff@minnie.tuhs.org>
Subject: [COFF] Will someone please explain the history and usage of gpasswd / newgrp / sg?
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2021 09:11:49 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <a04c7d8c-e9e1-4714-70a3-affc570bd871@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> (raw)


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 979 bytes --]

Hi,

Will someone please explain the history and usage of gpasswd / newgrp / sg?

I've run across them again recently while reading old Unix texts.  I've 
been aware of them for years, but I've never actually used them for 
anything beyond kicking the tires.  So I figured that I'd inquire of the 
hive mind that is TUHS / COFF.

When was the concept of group passwords introduced?

What was the problem that group passwords were the solution for?

How common was the use of group passwords?

I ran into one comment indicating that they used newgrp to work around a 
limitation in the number of (secondary) groups in relation to an NFS 
implementation.  Specifically that the implementation of NFS they were 
using didn't support more than 16 groups.  So they would switch their 
primary group to work around this limit.

Does anyone have any interesting stories related to group passwords / 
gpasswd / newgrp / sg?



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die


[-- Attachment #1.2: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature --]
[-- Type: application/pkcs7-signature, Size: 4013 bytes --]

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 141 bytes --]

_______________________________________________
COFF mailing list
COFF@minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff

             reply	other threads:[~2021-11-15 16:12 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-11-15 16:11 Grant Taylor via COFF [this message]
2021-11-15 16:26 ` Arrigo Triulzi via COFF
2021-11-15 18:29 ` Clem Cole
     [not found]   ` <CAEdTPBeNo-4vEVxxMzDTL_YYWvPb9VgMGTJBs7RaQhcDeJzeAg@mail.gmail.com>
2021-11-15 18:51     ` [COFF] [TUHS] " Clem Cole
2021-11-15 18:54       ` Warner Losh
2021-11-15 18:56       ` Clem Cole
2021-11-15 20:17   ` arnold
2021-11-15 21:37     ` Clem Cole

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=a04c7d8c-e9e1-4714-70a3-affc570bd871@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net \
    --to=coff@minnie.tuhs.org \
    --cc=gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net \
    --cc=tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).