Does anyone know what all the groups listed in /etc/groups mean? I tried googling for it, but none of the links give me specific information.
I was just wondering if anyone knows or if they have a link they found somewhere that details it all.
<Instructor Mode>
First, if you really want to understand /etc/group, you need to start with basic file and directory permissions. User accounts, defined in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow, and group accounts defined in /etc/group, are the basic blocks of the Linux security environment. The whole structure is a very close adaptation of standard Unix implementation, and understanding it is critical to successfully using Linux.
Google "Unix is a four-letter word". That used to be a very good basic-level site. Also, the Unix Guru Universe - www.ugu.com - is an excellent resource for all kinds of Unixy info and links.
There are groups that aren't root or attached to various regular users. They belong to what are called usually called "system accounts." The daemon, bin, adm, postgres (or pgsql), lp, sys, etc. users and groups exist so that various internal tasks can be run with more privileges and authority than a normal user has, but without needing to be root. If you look at /etc/passwd, you'll see users listed that correspond to those groups. Those system accounts should never actually log on, and are not allowed interactive access at all.
Then, in most Linux distributions, there is a group policy for users that differs from most "normal" Unix. It's called the "User Private Group" policy. In AIX, Solaris, or *BSD, when a new user is created he/she is assigned to the "users", "other", or "staff" group by default. This means that all users belong to the same group, and if *group permissions* are set properly on a file or directory, all users can access that file. In the UPG scheme, when a new user is made, a new *group* is also made, and that user is the only member of the group. Except in certain circumstances, this makes group permissions and policy identical to user permissions for the normal user. The UPG policy was developed by Red Hat, and it's explained pretty thoroughly in there System Administration handbook. That's online, on their docs site.
</Instructor>
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