what is uid and gid
 

hey guys,
i have been using linux for a year now..and have come to be pretty proficient with it...however there are still a few things i have no idea about...and thats where this thread comes in.
coudl someone please educat me on the significance of uid and gid and what does someone mean when they say that the app shud be installed suid root.
thanks a lot.:confused:

UID: User ID
GUI: Group ID

Installing suid root means to install the app as the root user.

thanks but could you also plz tell me their signinficance?what are they used for...what r they required for?

Take a look at this article.
http://www.geocities.com/tipsforlinux/articles/028.html
I hope it clear your mind of any doubts.

Tiago Veiga.

would it be smart at all to suid halt and poweroff so I don't have to always su and then run the commands?

Check out sudo instead of using su. Sudo allows you to give extra permissions on a temporary basis to users.

The problem with suid shutdown commands is if you have users who log in remotely you certainly don't want them to be able to reboot you.

Not a problem for me: This is a home PC, and it's not normally hooked up to my network. It's just an inconvenience to have to su all the time. Perhaps now I can even have a launcher give the shutdown command....

On a private machine with no remote logins, you can get away with a lot more than you can with something that has other people using it. In this case, there shouldn't be any problem.

uid and gid
 

Hello
uid is User id
and gid is group id
gid could be of two types one is primary and other secondary group.
that mean if
user ( rob gid is 555) then (spike gid can also be 555) that mean spike is under primary group of rob.