Re: invalid group name / home directory changed

[ktb <x.y.f@home.com>]

On Thu, Dec 14, 2000 at 11:15:02AM -0600, Robert Guthrie wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 December 2000 18:48, Erik Steffl wrote:
> > ktb wrote:
> > > I don't know how but every file and directory has recursively changed in
> > > my home directory.  What has changed is group and owner of all files.
> > > they are all now "1000".
> > >
> > > I can change the owner to "kent" but not the group.  When I try to do
> > > that I get - "invalid group name 'kent'".   I looked in /etc/group and
> > > there is a line - users:x100:
> > > I added kent -
> > > users:x:x100:kent
> > >
> > > Still can't change files in /home to group "kent".
> > >
> > > I do not know what I could have done that all the files in my home
> > > directory would change in such a way.  How could this happen?  How can I
> > > add group kent?  How can I do this recursively to the whole directory?
> >
> >   what you did is added the kent to group users, to create a group kent
> > you need something like this:
> >
> > kent:x:x100:kent
> >
> Did your home directory get created by a RedHat distribution?  They start 
> numbering users at 500, whereas debian starts at 1000.  Similar with groups.  
> The reason that you saw 1000 for the group is that there was no group NAME 
> defined for group number 1000 (that's how the file system knows what files 
> belong to what users/groups: numbers, not names).  Somehow you must have lost 
> the /etc/group entry for group "kent", as Erik describes above.
> 
> 
	I have no idea how my system lost group "kent".  I ran addgroup
	it created group "kent" under 102.  Changed all the group and
	owner names under /home to "kent".  Everything works so far.
	kent 

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