On Wed, 2005-11-23 at 17:25 +0000, Dave Brown wrote: > I've noticed a bit of an interesting thing with regards to the > numbering of new users and groups when using the useradd and groupadd > (and luseradd / lgroupadd) commands. > > Fresh system with no user accounts on it. Create a group called > "myfamily" using "groupadd myfamily" - the file /etc/group now has the > entry "myfamily:x:500". Create the user "brother" using "useradd > brother" - the file /etc/passwd now has > "brother:x:500:501::/home/brother:/bin/bash" and /etc/group has > "brother:x:501" > > As you can see the utilities have created the user brother with a > userid of 500 and a groupid of 501. All the system accounts (and if > you created any users before you created the group) will have the > groupid equal to the userid. The unequal userid / groupid combo doesnt > cause a problem as the home directory permissions created for the user > are fine. When I've just used the GUI tool, each new user has has the same UID and GUI, each incrementing by one for each new user. But if I added a user with a manual UID, using the GUI, the GID would automatically be one higher than the last automatically generated GID. Using the CLI, they'd both get the same GID and UID. e.g. On a system with Name UID GID John 500 500 Martha 501 501 George 502 502 Fred 508 508 If I now added a new user via the GUI, leaving it to pick GID and UIDs, they'd both be 503. But if I added a new users using the GUI, opting to set the UID as 515, it'd set the GID as 503 (the lowest free value). But if I'd added them using the CLI (as 515, again), they'd both be 515. I wish the GUI tool would either let me, also, set the GID, or set them both the same as each other. It might well be that I want to add a few usernames, but put them all into a guests group, for instance. I'd have to do that via the command line (or a script). -- Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
