NETGROUP(5) | File Formats Manual | NETGROUP(5)

# NAME

`netgroup` — defines network groups

# DESCRIPTION

The `netgroup` file specifies “netgroups”, which are sets of (host, user, domain) tuples that are to be given similar network access.

Each line in the file consists of a netgroup name followed by a list of the members of the netgroup. Each member can be either the name of another netgroup or a specification of a tuple as follows:

    (host, user, domain)

where the host, user, and domain are character string names for the corresponding component. Any of the comma separated fields may be empty to specify a “wildcard” value or may consist of the single character “-” to specify “no valid value”. The members of the list may be separated by whitespace; the “\” character may be used at the end of a line to specify line continuation.

Lines that begin with a ‘`#`’ are treated as comments.

After modification of /etc/netgroup, netgroup_mkdb(8) should be run, as the getnetgrent(3) functions only operate on the Berkeley DB file /etc/netgroup.db.

If that file is not present, and the system supports NIS, then the `netgroup` NIS maps are used. The NIS maps are also used if the `netgroup` file contains a “+” entry.

# FILES

/etc/netgroup
  default netgroup list
/etc/netgroup.db
  netgroup database

# EXAMPLES

Define a group of three machines:

`friends (10.0.0.2,,) (10.0.0.3,,) (10.0.0.4,,)`

This group can be used in exports(5) as follows:

`/home -maproot=nobody friends`

# SEE ALSO

dbopen(3), getnetgrent(3), exports(5), netgroup_mkdb(8)

# STANDARDS

The file format is compatible with that of various vendors, although it appears that not all vendors use an identical format.

# BUGS

The interpretation of access restrictions based on the member tuples of a netgroup is left up to the various network applications.

January 25, 2020 | Debian