Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!ukc!educ-isis!teexand From: teexand@ioe.lon.ac.uk (Andrew Dawson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix Subject: root is in too many groups Message-ID: <1991May8.102309.21850@ioe.lon.ac.uk> Date: 8 May 91 10:23:09 GMT Reply-To: andrew@uxm.sm.ucl.ac.uk Organization: Bloomsbury Computing Consortium Systems Development Division Lines: 30 We have a variety of RS6000 and PS/2 machines running AIX 3.1 and 1.2 respectively. We are using an RS6000 as an NIS (YP) master with the PS/2's as clients. The distributed /etc/group file on the RS6000 has root in the groups security, audit, cron, system, sys and bin. On the PS/2 root is in system, bin, sys, adm, uucp, mail, daemons and printq. We have a problem when root logs on to a PS/2. The combination of local and NIS group list means that root is in 10 groups. This is in excess of the 8 group limit imposed - for instance requests to NFS mount a remote file system are failing. Is it safe to remove root from some of these groups? I understand the purpose of most of them (eg group security users have access to files relating to user registration), but root should have the necessary permissions anyway. Does anyone know whether any commands specifically check internally whether the invoking user is in the appropriate group if the user is the superuser? Surely someone else must have had this problem, so any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance, Andrew. -- #include /* My brain was swiss-cheesed when I wrote this */ JANET: andrew@uk.ac.ucl.sm.uxm UUCP/EARN/BITNET: andrew@uxm.sm.ucl.ac.uk INTERNET: andrew%uxm.sm.ucl.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk "Leapers do it with assistance from neurological holograms"