Administering user accounts

About groups

Groups allow sets of users to share files. The group permissions on a file or directory determine whether members of a group can access them.

You can set the group of a file or directory by changing its properties from the Desktop or by using the chgrp(C) command. For more information on properties, see ``Controlling file permissions''.

A user can be a member of several groups at once, and can access any file or directory that is within their group set (if group permissions allow). This membership set is known as the supplemental group list. By default, files created by a user have the group ID of their login group. Users can change their current working group (also known as effective group ID) or manipulate their supplemental group list with the sg(C) command.

NOTE: When files are created in a directory, the group ownership is determined by the setting of the GID bit. See ``Setting the group ID for file creation in a directory''.