[net.unix] /etc/group

stanonik@nprdc (05/08/85)

We recently hit the 1024 char/line limit in vi while editing
/etc/group to add another user to a particularly large group.
Even if we used some other editor to get around the that limit,
the getgrent library seems to also have a 1024 char/line limit,
and no continuation lines.  Rather than recompile the getgrent
library with a bigger limit and then trying to find who uses
the getgrent library, we're thinking of omitting users from the
group entry for their default group, since the default group is
already specified in /etc/passwd.  Login seems to get the default
group from /etc/passwd, and only use /etc/group for additional
groups (4.2bsd).  I can't think of any programs which will fail
due to incomplete group entries in /etc/group, but you never
know.  Are we letting ourselves in for some (rude) surprises?

Thanks,

Ron Stanonik
stanoni@nprdc