[NTLUG:Discuss] Number of groups per user in Linux

[Chris Cox]

Greg Edwards wrote:
> Chris Cox wrote:
...
>>
>> If somebody knows different, speak up.  I deal with a lot of
>> Unix...  so I can't just consider the Linux-only side.  Maybe
>> Linux has something like nested groups... but not AFAIK.
> 
> 
> This is a Unix feature.  Say that greg is a user and greg is a group. 
> Then say the group greg is member of the group developer.  If the group 
> developer is a member of the group apache then greg has group 
> permissions to apache.  It's indirect, but works.
> 

Huh?  I don't think so.  That would imply a collision between
the username space and groupname space that never existed before.
Even transparent multi-group membership of a user isn't supported
universally across Unix.

Perhaps true in the context of LDAP... but not sure.

Can you show an example of how nested groups are represented
in /etc/group?  Again, it won't be universal though... even
if supported somehow in Linux.

Oh.. I think I see your confusion.  When you think that group
greg is a member of developer, what is really happening is that
the USER greg is a member of developer.  Ah the confusion of
Red Hat's skewing of the group definition.

I won't believe the extra nesting (the idea of a group developer
being a member of apache) until I see the example (pretend
I'm from Missouri).