Re: groups

[Dimitri Maziuk <dmaziuk@yola.bmrb.wisc.edu>]

* Greg Murphy (slackwares_slacker@yahoo.com) spake thusly:
> I recently switched from slackware to debian. Under slack, when users were 
> added they were defaultly added to the group "users". I see debian gives each 
> user his/her own group.
> 
> 1. Why did debian adopt this method? 

ISTR that it was discussed way back... Try searching old debian-devel 
archives maybe?

Basically, Unix ugo permissions suck -- they were OK in 1975 when
computers weren't fast enough to support better security mechanisms,
but in 2002 they're simly not fine-grained enough.

In slack (all users belong to us^W the same group), if your files 
are group-readable, every user can read them. In debian they can't,
you have to add people to your group if you want them to read your
files => more fine-grained control.

The downside is that number of groups a user can belong to is 
limited (32 by default, IIRC), and with debian's tendency to have 
a separate group for everything (audio, ppp, cdrom, ...) it's very 
easy to run out.

Dima
-- 
We're sysadmins. Sanity happens to other people.                  -- Chris King