/etc/group info

ygloo · 09-21-2006, 01:02 PM

there are entries in /etc/group file which don't have users attached to them...

like this one
man:x:15:

what does this mean??

b0uncer · 09-21-2006, 02:04 PM

It means there is a group called man on the system, but no users are in that group at the moment. It still doesn't mean the group is unneeded. It means probably that you have files (I'll guess man-pages) on your system that the man-group is owner of.

ygloo · 09-21-2006, 02:32 PM

i comment some groups:

Code:

/etc/group:
#ftp:x:50:
#games:x:20:casper
#gdm:x:42:
#mail:x:12:mail
#mysql:x:27:
#news:x:13:news
#nobody:x:98:nobody
#nogroup:x:99:
#pop:x:90:pop
#rpc:x:32:
#smmsp:x:25:smmsp
#sshd:x:33:sshd
#uucp:x:14:uucp

there are no web servers running
is it proper to comment groups??

trickykid · 09-21-2006, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ygloo

i comment some groups:

Code:

/etc/group:
#ftp:x:50:
#games:x:20:casper
#gdm:x:42:
#mail:x:12:mail
#mysql:x:27:
#news:x:13:news
#nobody:x:98:nobody
#nogroup:x:99:
#pop:x:90:pop
#rpc:x:32:
#smmsp:x:25:smmsp
#sshd:x:33:sshd
#uucp:x:14:uucp

there are no web servers running
is it proper to comment groups??

No. Liked mentioned before, some or most of these are vital for applications or file ownership on this system. There is no need to comment or remove most of these, most don't have any type of password associated with them so they are harmless. Better to keep them existing rather than encounter problems at a later time.