- How can I display all users and groups with a command?
- 2 Answers 2
- You must log in to answer this question.
- Related
- Hot Network Questions
- Subscribe to RSS
- List All Groups in Linux
- 1. Overview
- 2. Reading the /etc/group File
- 3. Using the getent Command
- 4. Getting Groups of a Specific User
- 5. Conclusion
- 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
- How to find out what group a given user has?
How can I display all users and groups with a command?
users and groups commands display users currently logged in, and groups a user belongs to respectively.
How to display a list of all users and all groups by command-line?
2 Answers 2
You can display with the help of compgen builtin command as follows:
- To display all users run following command:
However you can also display all users by cut -d «:» -f 1 /etc/passwd .
Nice! it might be preferable to use getent passwd / getent group instead of cat’ing the local files ( getent should work for non-local accounts as well)
Well, on my ubuntu, I have some files created by docker mount with 999:999 as user:group , but unfortunately none of the above commands prints them.
Here we are going to use getent for the detailed the info
We can list the user with the following command:
We can list the group as follows:
To fetch detail a specific user
Replace the lalit with your user name. Lalit will not be in every system 🙂
You can read the more into about getent here
You must log in to answer this question.
Related
Hot Network Questions
Subscribe to RSS
To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader.
Site design / logo © 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA . rev 2023.7.12.43529
Ubuntu and the circle of friends logo are trade marks of Canonical Limited and are used under licence.
By clicking “Accept all cookies”, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy.
List All Groups in Linux
The Kubernetes ecosystem is huge and quite complex, so it’s easy to forget about costs when trying out all of the exciting tools.
To avoid overspending on your Kubernetes cluster, definitely have a look at the free K8s cost monitoring tool from the automation platform CAST AI. You can view your costs in real time, allocate them, calculate burn rates for projects, spot anomalies or spikes, and get insightful reports you can share with your team.
Connect your cluster and start monitoring your K8s costs right away:
1. Overview
Users and groups are two important elements in Linux security management. In this quick tutorial, we’re going to look at how to list all groups on the current system.
Additionally, we’ll address how to get all groups a specific user belongs to as well.
2. Reading the /etc/group File
In Linux, all groups are defined in the file /etc/group. Moreover, it stores each group entry in the format:
group_name:password(encrypted):GID:user_list
First, let’s take a look at an example of /etc/group:
$ cat /etc/group root:x:0:root bin:x:1:root,bin,daemon daemon:x:2:root,bin,daemon sys:x:3:root,bin adm:x:4:root,daemon tty:x:5: disk:x:6:root lp:x:7:cups,daemon,kent mem:x:8: .
The /etc/group file is a plain text file. Therefore, we can read the file and use our Linux command-line fu to extract the data we want, such as the group name:
$ cut -d: -f1 /etc/group root bin daemon sys adm tty disk lp mem .
In the example above, we’ve used the cut command to extract the group name only. Thus, the output contains all group names on the system, one group per line.
3. Using the getent Command
The /etc/group file defines all groups on the local system.
However, if we’re working on a networked system, the system reads local groups from the /etc/group file, and it can read groups from networked services as well, such as LDAP.
We can use the getent command to read the group database to get all groups:
$ getent group root:x:0:root bin:x:1:root,bin,daemon daemon:x:2:root,bin,daemon sys:x:3:root,bin adm:x:4:root,daemon tty:x:5: disk:x:6:root lp:x:7:cups,daemon,kent mem:x:8: .
As the output shows, each group’s format has the same format as the /etc/group file.
If we want to obtain the group names only, the same cut trick can help us here as well:
$ getent group | cut -d: -f1 root bin daemon sys adm tty disk lp mem .
4. Getting Groups of a Specific User
We’ve learned how to get all groups defined on a system. Sometimes, in more common cases, we want to know which groups a specific user belongs to.
In this section, we’re going to show two ways to get this information. Both are pretty straightforward.
The first way to reach our goal is to use the groups command. This command is shipped with the shadow-utils package. Therefore, it’s available on all Linux distros by default.
If we don’t give it any arguments, the groups command will list all groups of the current user:
kent$ groups lp wheel dbus network video audio optical storage input users vboxusers docker kent
However, if we like, we can pass a username to the command, and it’ll report only the groups that the given user belongs to:
kent$ groups root root bin daemon sys adm disk wheel log
Alternatively, we can use the id command to do it, too.
The id command is a handy utility to report user information, such as the username, the real name, and groups.
Since the id command is a member of the Coreutils, it has been installed on all Linux distros by default.
We can combine the -G and -n options to make the id command print all group names of a given user.
Similar to the groups command, if we don’t tell id a username, it’ll print group names of the current user:
kent$ id -Gn kent lp wheel dbus network video audio optical storage input users vboxusers docker
However, when we pass a username to the command, it’ll naturally output the group names of the given user:
kent$ id -Gn root root bin daemon sys adm disk wheel log
5. Conclusion
In this quick article, we’ve first learned two approaches to get all groups defined on the system:
Later, we’ve also addressed two straightforward commands – id and groups – to get a specific user’s group names through examples.
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
Didn’t find what you were looking for? Perform a quick search across GoLinuxCloud
If my articles on GoLinuxCloud has helped you, kindly consider buying me a coffee as a token of appreciation.
For any other feedbacks or questions you can either use the comments section or contact me form.
Thank You for your support!!
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