Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!ames!sri-spam!rutgers!mtune!bakerst!kathy
From: kathy@bakerst.UUCP (Kathy Vincent)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Setting up groups
Message-ID: <1014@bakerst.UUCP>
Date: 22 Dec 87 19:00:11 GMT
References: <4718@well.UUCP> <6866@ncoast.UUCP>
Reply-To: kathy@bakerst.UUCP (Kathy Vincent)
Organization: AT&T, Winston-Salem, NC
Lines: 35

In article <6866@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes:
 }As quoted from <4718@well.UUCP> by samlb@well.UUCP (Samuel B. Bassett):
 }+---------------
 }| 	How do you assign a user to more than one group?
 }| 	I've been appointed assistant sysadmin at work, and the subject of
 }| group read/write permissions has come up, and the sysadmin just looks blank
 }| when I ask how to enroll users in more than one group.
 }+---------------
 }
 }You don't name the OS type.  System V doesn't permit users to be in multiple
 }groups; that is (for now; hey, AT&T, snap it up!  ;-) the exclusive province
 }of Berkeley Un*xes.  If you've got 4.xBSD, watch for other responses....

I thought this had already been covered, but.
System V *does* permit users to be in multiple groups -
but users must explicitly switch from group to group
using the newgrp command.  I used to have training courses
set up this way - so that the instructors could be members
of both the students' groups and their own private group.

Each student login and each instructor login was assigned
to the student group in the /etc/group file, and each instructor
login was assigned to the instructors group in /etc/group.
Whatever files you created were given the group ID of whatever
group you were "in" at the time you created those files.

This approach has also been used for people who work on 
different projects, each of which needs to be kept separate
from everything else for one reason or another.
Each project is assigned to a group, and users switch
group to switch to working on a new project.

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