Username & groups

[Lowell Gilbert]

prad <prad at towardsfreedom.com> writes:

> On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:00:24 -0400
> Jon Radel <jon at radel.com> wrote:
>
>> Other things being equal, it's better
>> to have all users use their own login group and then add them to
>> additional groups as appropriate.
>>
> jon,
>
> i have always been curious about this. why is it better for a user to
> be in his own group? on slackware i recall users all went into the
> users group.
>
> one benefit i can see is that if a user has his own group then you
> can effectively give others access to certain files by adding them to
> that users group.
>
> are there other reasons?

>From adduser(8):
     Perhaps you are missing what can be done with this scheme that falls
     apart with most other schemes.  With each user in their own group, they
     can safely run with a umask of 002 instead of the usual 022 and create
     files in their home directory without worrying about others being able to
     change them.

     For a shared area you create a separate UID/GID (like cvs or ncvs on
     freefall), you place each person that should be able to access this area
     into that new group.

     This model of UID/GID administration allows far greater flexibility than
     lumping users into groups and having to muck with the umask when working
     in a shared area.