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Re: changes to /etc/group ?



On Wed, 2003-05-21 at 13:15, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 10:36:48AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > On Mon, 2003-05-19 at 17:43, Dave Sherohman wrote:
> > > On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 12:20:26AM +0100, Dave Selby wrote:
> > > > When I change /etc/group is there a way of updating the system so the 
> > > > changes are acknowledged without re-booting?
> > > 
> > > /etc/group is checked when the user logs in.  To gain access to
> > > newly-added groups, just log out and back in.  No need to reboot.
> > 
> > Yeah, but what a pain when you've got a bunch of different programs
> > running in windows, multiple URLs loaded, etc, etc.
> > 
> > There should be a way to dynamically refresh the "group cache".
> 
> Not possible because one process can't affect the privileges of another
> process in Unix. The Hurd claims to be able to do this using a strange
> hack with ports I think, although I'm not yet convinced of the security
> of that approach; it changes a lot of basic assumptions.
> 
> You can use newgrp to start a new shell with an additional group.

Unless an X app needs the new privs.  (I guess you could do the
xset hack, though.)

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| Ron Johnson, Jr.     Home: ron.l.johnson@cox.net          |
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