Temporarily Changing User Groups

Temporarily Changing User Groups

Normally users are members of only one group at a time. However, users can change groups using the newgrp(1) command. Changing groups is sometimes useful for performing administrative tasks.

The superuser can belong to any group listed in the /etc/groups file. Other users must be listed as members of a group in order to temporarily change groups with newgrp.

You can belong to multiple groups simultaneously by invoking the multgrps(1) command. In this case, files you create have their group IDs set to the group you were in before you issued the multgrps command. You have group access permissions to any file whose group ID matches any of the groups you are in.

You can only change groups to a group you are affiliated with in the /etc/groups file. To determine which groups you belong to, use the id(1) command.