The newgrp command

[Vidol Loeung]

Thanks Richard. When I as a user used newgrp to switch myself to a new
group, I of course gave the password of that group, which was assigned by
the gpasswd comamnd as you mentioned. I also agree that, this command is
rarely used and I think, it only makes sense when a user would like
files/directories (s)he creates to belong to a particular group. Having the
user as a member in each group is fine.

My question was out of curiosity as I was trying to experiment the newgrp
command and found that it did not seem to work the way it should as its
manual and documentations stated that the command is used to switch a user
to a new group and requires the group password.

Let me give a scenario here:
- I logged in as user 'joe'.
- Then, I typed this command ('joe' is not a member of group 'users'):
  $ newgrp users
  Password:
  newgrp: Permission denied

I've wondering what the group passwd command is used for and found that the
newgrp command is the one that needs the group passwd. Now, when I tried it
as above it did not work.

Would someone kindly clarify a bit more on the use of the newgrp command?

Regards,
Vidol

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <rengland at europa.com>
To: "For users of Fedora Core releases" <fedora-list at redhat.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 3:07 AM
Subject: Re: The newgrp command


> > Thank you Ben and Richard for yoru replies.
> >
> > Well, Ben you are right, root can switch to any group without having to
> > give
> > a password. I also discovered the same as what Richard said. However, in
> > case an ordinary user is not a member of a particular group and she/he
> > tries
> > to use the newgrp command to switch to that group with correct password,
> > it
> > always gave the error message: Permission denied.
> >
> > Read a lot of docs on it but still could not help.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Vidol
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Richard England" <rengland at europa.com>
> > To: "For users of Fedora Core releases" <fedora-list at redhat.com>
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 1:06 PM
> > Subject: Re: The newgrp command
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Ben Stringer wrote:
> >>
> >> >On Tue, 2005-08-23 at 12:17 +0700, Vidol Loeung wrote:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >>Dear All:
> >> >>
> >> >>The newgrp command seems simple to use. However, I could not use it
or
> >> I
> > did
> >> >>not know how to use it.
> >> >>
> >> >>Could someone please explain me what teh problem is? I was logged in
> >> as
> > an
> >> >>ordinary user and type the command:
> >> >>$ newgrp users
> >> >>It asked me for the group password and I entered it but it said:
> > "Permission
> >> >>denied".
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >Hi Vidol,
> >> >
> >> >You will need to be the root user to run this command.
> >> >
> >> >Try this:
> >> >
> >> >$ su -
> >> ># newgrp users
> >> >
> >> >Cheers, Ben
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >>Regards,
> >> >>Vidol
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> I don't believe that is strictly true.  If the userid is included in
> >> several groups, all the user has to do is type in "newgrp
<newgrpname>".
> >> However, if the user is NOT member of the group, then they are prompted
> >> for the group password.
> >>
> >> Use the command "id" to find out what your primary group currently is,
> >> and the command "groups" to find out what groups your userid is
> >> currently a member of.
> >>
> >> --R
> >>
> >> --
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> >
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> >
> >
>
>
> I'm no expert on this but what password were you entering for the group?
> Do you know what, if any password was assigned to the group?  It may or
> may not be the same as you login passwd.
>
> You can modify the group password using gpasswd  (see the man page).  I
> did not investigate to find out how the original (creation time) password
> is set.
>
> I've only used a small number of groups  (3-4) on my personal machine and
> I've added my userid to each so I've never had to use newgrp there.  At
> work I don't have permissions to modify anything at this level so I've not
> worked with it.
>
> --R
>
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