[Important] Limit on the number of users in a group?

[Jesse Yurkovich <yurkjes@iit.edu>]

Hi,
        when a group in /etc/group contains over 100 members, chgrp stops 
functioning properly when a _numeric_ group ID is passed as an argument. Note 
that this is a different situation then the 32 group limit that linux 
specifies in which a user may not be a part of more than 32 groups.  This is 
when a group contains more than 100 or so users.

        Providing a group name as an argument works correctly in all cases. 
However, when the 100+ member group exists in /etc/group, providing a numeric 
group ID as an argument sends chgrp into an infinite loop eating up all 
available resources -- happens to render the 2.4.x OOM killer useless as 
well.

        I have recently upgraded from stable to testing, but I've only noticed 
this bug recently, and I am unsure if it has been there before.

* * *
        RedHat has addressed a similar bug in April
(see http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=82619).
They have fixed the bug in the RHSA-2003:089-11
advisory (see http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2003-089.html).

        Is this a known bug in Debian? Please, reply all to
this email.

	It is very important because this is a production machine (for lack of a 
better name) and provides real services to our users.  Having the machine die 
because a script running from cron hits this bug is not nice on the weekends 
when no access to the machine can be obtained.

Thank you,
-Jesse