/etc/group - response summary

[stanonik at nprdc]

I've had 7 responses to my question about the advisability of
omitting users from the group entry in /etc/group corresponding
to the default group as gotten from /etc/passwd.  The question
came up because a large group exceeded the 1024 character/line
limit in vi (and the getgrent library).

5 sites said they were already omitting users from the default
group entry without ill effects.  (I assume these were 4.2bsd sites,
since I mentioned 4.2bsd in the original question.)

2 sites mentioned the problem of newgrp'ing away from the default
group and then not being able to newgrp back.  This sounds like
a problem for 4.1bsd and earlier sites, since 4.2bsd did away
with newgrp.  ("Access control is based on a group set rather
than on a single group.")

The only program mentioned which seemed to depend a complete group
entries was dump, which uses the operator group for notification;
ie, a user not present in the operator group entry would not be
notified even if operator were their default group.

Ron Stanonik
stanonik at nprdc