- How to find out what group a given user has?
- 7 methods to list user groups in Linux? [SOLVED]
- Method-1: Using groups command
- Method-2: Using id command
- Method-3: Using getent command
- Method-4: Using /etc/group file
- Method-5: Using compgen command
- Method-6: Using lid command
- Method-7: Using dscl command (On MacOS)
- Bonus Tip
- What is NEXT?
- Summary
- References
- List Groups in Ubuntu Command Line
- How to check the groups of a user
- List groups of the current user
- List groups of the other users
- List all the groups in Ubuntu
- How to list groups using the getent command
- List every member of a specific group
- Want to know how you can add a user to a group?
How to find out what group a given user has?
This appears to be pretty useful as well. It has more verbose output than the ‘groups’ command, so if you need the group id/user id use this!
On Linux/OS X/Unix to display the groups to which you (or the optionally specified user) belong, use:
which is equivalent to groups [user] utility which has been obsoleted on Unix.
On OS X/Unix, the command id -p [user] is suggested for normal interactive.
Explanation on the parameters:
-G , —groups — print all group IDs
-n , —name — print a name instead of a number, for -ugG
-p — Make the output human-readable.
or just study /etc/groups (ok this does probably not work if it uses pam with ldap)
Below is the script which is integrated into ansible and generating dashboard in CSV format.
sh collection.sh #!/bin/bash HOSTNAME=`hostname -s` for i in `cat /etc/passwd| grep -vE "nologin|shutd|hal|sync|root|false"|awk -F':' '' | sed 's/[[:space:]]/,/g'`; do groups $i; done|sed s/\:/\,/g|tr -d ' '|sed -e "s/^/$HOSTNAME,/"> /tmp/"$HOSTNAME"_inventory.txt sudo cat /etc/sudoers| grep -v "^#"|awk ''|grep -v Defaults|sed '/^$/d;s/[[:blank:]]//g'>/tmp/"$HOSTNAME"_sudo.txt paste -d , /tmp/"$HOSTNAME"_inventory.txt /tmp/"$HOSTNAME"_sudo.txt|sed 's/,[[:blank:]]*$//g' >/tmp/"$HOSTNAME"_inventory_users.txt
My output stored in below text files.
cat /tmp/ANSIBLENODE_sudo.txt cat /tmp/ANSIBLENODE_inventory.txt cat /tmp/ANSIBLENODE_inventory_users.txt
7 methods to list user groups in Linux? [SOLVED]
In operating systems, applications add their own users and groups to the system. From an administrative point of view, this makes it easier for users. Adding users to the application group is the easiest way to edit privileges. As a matter of fact, systems such as LDAP and Active Directory are also built on this method.
There are many methods of listing groups in Linux. In some methods, group information is accessed from the user, while in some methods, users are accessed from group information. We will tell you some of the most used methods with examples.
Method-1: Using groups command
When you run the groups command without any parameters, it lists the group information of the user who opened the terminal:
foc@fedora:~$ groups foc wheel
If you type a username after the group command, the groups belonging to that user are listed:
foc@fedora:~$ groups golinux golinux : golinux
In this method, groups are listed with user information.
Method-2: Using id command
Like the group command, the id command, when executed without parameters, lists the active user’s groups. But this time group id are also displayed:
foc@fedora:~$ id uid=1000(foc) gid=1000(foc) groups=1000(foc),10(wheel)
By typing the username after the id command, the groups belonging to that user are listed with their ids:
foc@fedora:~$ id golinux uid=1001(golinux) gid=1001(golinux) groups=1001(golinux)
As the user’s group information increases, the information displayed on the screen may not be understood. With the parameters of the ID command, the output can be made more understandable. For example, to list all group ids and names:
foc@fedora:~$ id -Gn golinux golinux
You can get help from the —help page for all its parameters:
foc@fedora:~$ id --help Usage: id [OPTION]. [USER]. Print user and group information for each specified USER, or (when USER omitted) for the current user. -a ignore, for compatibility with other versions -Z, --context print only the security context of the process -g, --group print only the effective group ID -G, --groups print all group IDs -n, --name print a name instead of a number, for -ugG -r, --real print the real ID instead of the effective ID, with -ugG -u, --user print only the effective user ID
Again in this method, groups are listed with their user information.
Method-3: Using getent command
The getent command pulls information from the group database. If there is no central system such as LDAP, Active Directory, it will pull from the local database.
You can pull groups by typing group after getent command:
foc@fedora:~$ getent group root:x:0: bin:x:1: . disk:x:6: lp:x:7: mem:x:8: kmem:x:9: wheel:x:10:foc cdrom:x:11: mail:x:12:
To list users in a group, you must type the group name:
foc@fedora:~$ getent group wheel wheel:x:10:foc
To list all groups in the system without details:
foc@fedora:~$ getent group | cut -d: -f1 root bin disk lp mem kmem wheel cdrom mail
This method lists both groups and users in that group.
Method-4: Using /etc/group file
On Linux the group information is in the /etc/group file. If a user is added or removed from the group, this file changes.
When you view this file with file view commands like cat , it gives a complex output. To list group information, you can write it like this:
foc@fedora:~$ cut -d: -f1 /etc/group root bin . lp mem kmem wheel . tape video ftp
For the total number of groups:
foc@fedora:~$ cat /etc/group | grep -c "" 82
Using awk command we can extract the group names from the /etc/group file using the colon ( : ) delimiter.
Method-5: Using compgen command
Another command you can use to list groups in Linux is compgen . You can list the groups in the system with the -g parameter:
[foc@rocky9 ~]$ compgen -g root bin wheel ftp lock audio users nobody foc
Method-6: Using lid command
This command displays information about the specified group, including the GID, group password (if any), and members.
# lid -g nagios nagios(uid=1001) apache(uid=48) snmptt(uid=974)
Method-7: Using dscl command (On MacOS)
Using the dscl command on macOS. This command displays information about the specified group on macOS.
dscl . -read /Groups/groupname
Bonus Tip
If you want to list the groups of users logged into the system, you can use the following for loop:
[foc@rocky9 ~]$ for user in $(cat /etc/passwd | grep bash | awk -F: '');do groups $user; done root : root foc : foc wheel
Note: Bash was chosen as the default shell. If a different shell(zsh,sh etc) is used, it can be written after the grep command.
What is NEXT?
Summary
There is always an alternative on Linux. We have explained different ways to list groups in Linux for you. The commands and methods used may vary according to habits. You can use whichever method is faster and easier for you. Of course the choice is yours.
You can get help with the -h/—help parameter for each command. For more detailed information, you can also access the man page of the commands as in the example:
foc@fedora:~$ man id NAME id - print real and effective user and group IDs SYNOPSIS id [OPTION]. [USER]. .
References
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List Groups in Ubuntu Command Line
Linux, from its core, is built to have multiple users.
And separating users into different groups is pretty convenient for managing permissions.
A user can be a member of more than one group. This is why the groups are divided into the following two categories:
- Primary group : Also known as the login or default group. If the user creates a file, the primary group takes the group ownership. Usually, the primary group has the same name as the user.
- Secondary group : Also known as a supplementary group. It is used to grant specific permissions to users. For example, in Ubuntu, only members of the sudo groups can run commands with sudo.
How do you know which group a user belongs to? Let me show you that.
How to check the groups of a user
Here are various scenarios for listing user groups in Ubuntu.
List groups of the current user
To list the groups of the current user, all you have to do is execute a single command without any additional flags:
Yep, all you have to do is execute the groups command!
List groups of the other users
If you want to find out the groups to which the specific user belongs, all you have to do is append the username to the groups command:
For your reference, here, I checked the groups where the user root and sagar belong:
I could have used both users in single command as well.
List all the groups in Ubuntu
You just learned how to see which groups a user belongs to. How about listing all the available groups? That can be done too.
The /etc/group file contains all the necessary information about the local group.
So you can read the contents of that file and easily list the groups:
Similarly, if you want to find a specific group, you can use the grep command to filter the output:
In case you are wondering about the meaning of the output, here’s what that means:
- sudo is the name of the group.
- x indicates that shadow passwords are being used and can be found at /etc/gshadow .
- 27 is the group ID.
- sagar is the list of the group users. You can have multiple of them.
And if they seem irrelevant, you can use the cut command and print the group names only:
Another option is to use the getent command
How to list groups using the getent command
The getent command is used to get entries from the database, including passwd and group database.
This means it can be used for our purpose too!
To get a list of groups, all you need to do is append group to the getent command:
List every member of a specific group
If you want a list of every user belonging to a specific group, you can use the getent command in the following syntax:
Let’s say I want to list every member of the sudo group, then I will be using the following command:
Want to know how you can add a user to a group?
Cannot see the group you are looking for? How about creating that group?
If you want to add a user to an existing group and have no idea how to? We have a dedicated guide to solve this issue:
I hope you will find this guide helpful and if you have any queries, let me know in the comments.