.\" Copyright (c) 1993 Michael Haardt (michael@moria.de),
.\"     Fri Apr  2 11:32:09 MET DST 1993
.\"
.\" This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
.\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
.\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
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.\" Modified Sat Jul 24 17:06:03 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
.TH GROUP 5 2009-02-23 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
group \- user group file
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fI/etc/group\fP is a text file which defines the groups on the system.
There is one entry per line, with the following format:
.sp
.RS
group_name:passwd:GID:user_list
.RE
.sp
The field descriptions are:
.IP group_name
the name of the group.
.IP password
the (encrypted) group password.
If this field is empty, no password is needed.
.IP GID
the numerical group ID.
.IP user_list
a list of the usernames that are members of this group, separated by commas.
.SH FILES
/etc/group
.SH BUGS
As the 4.2BSD
.BR initgroups (3)
man page says: No-one seems to keep
.I /etc/group
up-to-date.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR login (1),
.BR newgrp (1),
.BR getgrent (3),
.BR getgrnam (3),
.BR passwd (5)
.SH COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux
.I man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
and information about reporting bugs,
can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
