GROUP ADMINISTRATION

GROUP ADMINISTRATION

Few Restrictions on the Group Name:

1. Group names cannot start with the below signs:

·         Dash or minus sign (-).

·         Plus sign (+)

·         At symbol (@)

·         Tilde (~)

2. Groups cannot be named ALL or default, as these names are reserved for the AIX OS.
 
3. Group names cannot include :

·         Colon (:)  

·         Quotation marks—single or double (' or ")

·         Pound or hash sign (#)

·         Comma (,)

·         Equal sign (=)

·         Slashes—back or forward (\ or /)

·         Question mark (?)

·         Back quote or tick (`)

·         White space (space or tab)

·         New-line characters

4. Group names can have max. 8 characters in AIX V 5.2 or earlier. Starting with AIX 5.3, you can have a
   max. of 255 characters.
   
   
   
   Now let us look at the configuration files for groups.
   
   
   /etc/group :
   
   This file contains the basic group configuration details in the following format.
   
   Group Name : Password Flag : GID : User(s)
   
   where
   Password Flag - This field is not used in AIX.
   GID                 - Group ID is the unique identification number for every group. 0 is the gid for system group.
   User(s)             - List of users belonging to the group
   
   /etc/security/group :
   
   This file contains the extended attribtues for the groups.
   Here are the parameters used in this file.
   
   adms  - List of users with admin rights to ths group
   admin - If set to true, this group will have administrative rights.
   
   There are 4 main commands used in the administration of group :
   
   mkgroup - Add a group
   chgroup - Change an attribtue of a group
   lsgroup  - List the attribtues of a group
   rmgroup - Remove a group
   
   These words can also be used as fastpaths for smitty.
   
   For example, # smitty mkgroup will open a form to create a group.
   
   For doing the whole group administration, you can use
   
   # smitty group and go thru the menu items for various operations.
   
   
   Now let us see the commands to administrate groups ...
   
   1. To create a group called dba :
   
   # mkgroup dba
   
   2. To create a admin group called admin1 :
   
   # mkgroup -a admin1
   
   3. To create dba group and add jack as the admin :
   
   # mkgroup adms=jack dba
   
   4. To change the members of dba group, you can use any of the below commands :
   
   # chgroup users=jack,tom,michelle dba
   
   # chgrpmem dba
   
   # chgrpmem -m + raja dba
   
   5. To remove the membership of a user from the dba group :
   
   # chgrpmem -m - jack dba
   
   6. To add a user as admin for the dba group :
   
   # chgrpmem -a + raja dba
   
   7. To remove the group administrator :
   
   # chgrpmem -a - raja dba
   
   8. To list the attributes of a group :
   
   # lsgroup dba
   
   9. To remove a group from the system :
   
   # rmgroup test