what is primary group

ram_rajavarapu · 01-23-2009, 08:25 AM

Hai LinuxLQ
My pc has rhel5 and my question is that what is primary group and what is secondary group and how to know whether it is primary or secondary?

miedward · 01-23-2009, 08:31 AM

Assuming you are talking about user groups, a group is just an arbitrary collection of users. The user's primary group is the one that shows up when you do "id" and such things, but really all groups are more or less equal. They can control what files a user has access to.

In a single user workstation, you don't really need to worry about them.

paulsm4 · 01-23-2009, 08:32 AM

Google "linux users primary group":

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com...1-5349294.html

PS:
When you create a new file, it has a "user" (you), but it can have only one "group" (of which you might belong to many). The new file will be created with your "primary group" as the file owner group.