Is there a command to list all Unix group names? [closed]
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I know there is the /etc/group file that lists all users groups.
I would like to know if there is a simple command to list all user group names in spite of parsing the world readable /etc/group file. I am willing to create an administrator web page that lists Linux accounts’ group names.
3 Answers 3
To list all local groups which have users assigned to them, use this command:
If you want all groups known to the system, I would recommend using getent group instead of parsing /etc/group :
The reason is that on networked systems, groups may not only read from /etc/group file, but also obtained through LDAP or Yellow Pages (the list of known groups comes from the local group file plus groups received via LDAP or YP in these cases).
If you want just the group names you can use:
On Linux, macOS and Unix to display the groups to which you belong, use:
which is equivalent to groups utility which has been obsoleted on Unix (as per Unix manual).
On macOS and Unix, the command id -p is suggested for normal interactive.
Explanation of 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.
Linux Show All Members of a Group Command
Linux Show All Members of a Group Commands
- /etc/group file – User group file
- members command – List members of a group
- lid command (or libuser-lid on newer Linux distros) – List user’s groups or group’s users
Tutorial details | |
---|---|
Difficulty | Easy (rss) |
Root privileges | Yes |
Requirements | None |
Time | 1m |
There are two types of groups in Linux:
- Primary group – is the main group that is associated with user account. Each user is a member of exactly one primary group.
- Secondary group – used to provide additional rights to user. For example, access to the dvd/cdrom drive can be granted with help of cdrom group.
Linux: List all members of a group using /etc/group file
Use the grep command as follows:
$ grep ‘grpup-name-here’ /etc/group
$ grep ‘ftponly’ /etc/group
$ grep -i —color ‘ftponly’ /etc/group
To get just a list of all members of a group called ftponly, type the following awk command:
awk -F’:’ ‘/ftponly/
Display group memberships for each Linux user
Want to see group memberships for each given USERNAME under Linux? The syntax is as follows for the groups command:
groups
groups
groups vivek
The following outputs indicates that the user named ‘vivek’ is part of four groups including ‘vivek’ primary group:
Linux List all members of a group using members command
Warning: members command is not installed on most Linux distros. Use yum command or apt-get command/apt command to install the same:
$ sudo apt-get install members
To outputs members of a group called ftponly, enter:
$ members
$ members ftponly
Fig. 01: members command in action to list members in a group
How to list all users in a Linux group using lid command
You can displays information about groups containing user name, or users contained in group name using lid command as follows.
Warning: lid command is not installed on most distros. Use yum command or apt-get command to install the same:
$ sudo apt-get install libuser
To see users contained in group named ‘ftponly’:
# lid -g ftponly
Please note that newer version of libuser renamed the lid command to libuser-lid . Thus, use it as follows:
$ sudo libuser-lid -g ftponly
Sample outputs:
To show information about groups containing user named ‘nixcraft’:
Use lid command or libuser-lid command on Linux to show all members of a group named nixcraft:
# lid nixcraft
OR
$ sudo libuser-lid nixcraft
Sample outputs:
See lid command man page for more information.
How to list groups in Linux
To see all users, run less command/more command:
less /etc/group
OR
more /etc/group
Another option is to type the following getent command:
getent group
For example, locate the members of a group with the name vboxusers, run:
getent group vboxusers
Sample outputs indicating vivek and raj users are part of vboxusers group:
Finally, you can use the id command to display real and effective user and group IDs:
id
id vivek
id -nG raj # show all group IDs for raj user
id -ng raj # show only effective group ID for raj user
Conclusion
Now you know how to use various Linux commands to show all members of a group. I suggest you read the man pages for more info by typing the following man command:
$ man libuser-lid $ man members
Linux: Show The Groups a User Is In
H ow do I find out what groups I belong to under Linux operating systems?
/etc/group is a text file which defines the groups on the system. You can use the groups command to display group memberships for any user using the following syntax.
groups groups userName-Here
Example
pen a command-line terminal (select Applications > Accessories > Terminal), and then type:
$ groups
Sample outputs:
You are part of all of the above groups. To find group memebership for root user, enter:
$ groups root
Sample outputs:
Please note that (from the groups man page):
Primary and supplementary groups for a process are normally inherited from its parent and are usually unchanged since login. This means that if you change the group database after logging in, groups will not reflect your changes within your existing login session. Running `groups’ with a list of users causes the user and group database to be consulted afresh, and so will give a different result.
You can also use the id command as follows to get the same information:
$ id -Gn
$ id -Gn userName
$ id -Gn vivek
How Do I Find Out My Primary Group Membership?
Type the following command:
$ getent group userName
$ getent group vivek
Sample outputs:
In this example, user vivek has group id # 1000 and has group name vivek for primary group membership.
How to List Groups in Linux
In Linux, a group is a collection of users. The main purpose of the groups is to define a set of privileges like read, write, or execute permission for a given resource that can be shared among the users within the group. Users can be added to an existing group to utilize the privileges it grants.
This tutorial explains how to show all groups a user is a member of. We will also explain how to list all members of a group.
Linux Groups #
There are two types of groups that a user can belong to:
Primary or login group – is the group that is assigned to the files that are created by the user. Usually, the name of the primary group is the same as the name of the user. Each user must belong to exactly one primary group.
Secondary or supplementary group — used to grant certain privileges to a set of users. A user can be a member of zero or more secondary groups.
List all Groups a User is a Member of #
There are multiple ways to find out the groups a user belongs to.
The primary user’s group is stored in the /etc/passwd file and the supplementary groups, if any, are listed in the /etc/group file.
One way to find the user’s groups is to list the contents of those files using cat , less or grep . Another easier option is to use a command whose purpose is to provide information about the system’s users and groups.
Using the groups command #
The most memorable command to list all groups a user is a member of is the groups command. When executed without an argument the command will print a list of all groups the currently logged in user belongs to:
The first group is the primary group.
To get a list of all groups a specific user belongs to, provide the username to the groups command as an argument:
Same as before the first group is the primary group.
Using the id command #
The id command prints information about the specified user and its groups. If the username is omitted it shows information for the current user.
For example to get information about the user linuxize you would type:
The command will show the user ID ( uid ), the user’s primary group ( gid ), and the user’s secondary groups ( groups )
To print only the names instead of the numbers use the -n option. Option -g will print only the primary group and -G all groups.
The following command will print the names of the groups the current user is a member of:
List All Members of a Group #
To list all members of a group, use the getent group command followed by the group name.
For example, to find out the members of a group with the name developers you would use the following command:
If the group exists the command will print the group and all its members:
If there is no output that means the group doesn’t exist.
List All Groups #
To view all groups present on the system simply open the /etc/group file. Each line in this file represents information for one group.
Another option is to use the getent command which displays entries from databases configured in /etc/nsswitch.conf file including the group database which we can use to query a list of all groups.
To get a list of all groups, type the following command:
The output is the same as when displaying the content of the /etc/group file. If you are using LDAP for user authentication the getent will display all groups from both /etc/group file and LDAP database.
You can also use awk or cut to print only the first field containing the name of the group:
Conclusion #
In this tutorial, you learned how to find the groups a user is a member of. The same commands apply for any Linux distribution, including Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL, Debian and Linux Mint.
Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.