Re: /etc/group changes don't take effect immediately
Alphonse Ogulla <ogulla@uonbi.ac.ke> writes:
> In an effort to run ppp as non root, I had to include my normal user
> id in the group 'dip' by directly editing /etc/group using
> vi. However, on saving and exiting /etc/group, I still could *not*
> access files owned by user root and available to users in group dip
> whilst using my normal uid. Just as I was about to give up, I
> decided to exit the shell and log in once again... Is the file
> /etc/group cached somewhere and updated only so often?
Sort of; your group list is attached to your login session. 'groups'
will list which groups you're currently a member of, along with your
primary group.
> How can the changes be forced to take effect immediately without
> exiting and logging in again?
If you run 'newgrp dip', and you're nominally a member of that group,
you'll get a new shell with dip as your primary group, and I think
that will re-read the group list as a side effect. It won't affect
the containing shell, or things like your X session, though.
--
David Maze dmaze@debian.org http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/
"Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal."
-- Abra Mitchell
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