xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man7/groups.7 (revision 61a9079563d1468cb1d97ae836b518b20d4d95c3)
1.\"	$NetBSD: groups.7,v 1.8 2020/04/02 20:57:20 roy Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 2020 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.
4.\" All rights reserved.
5.\"
6.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
8.\" are met:
9.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
12.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
13.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
14.\"
15.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE NETBSD FOUNDATION, INC. AND CONTRIBUTORS
16.\" ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
17.\" TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
18.\" PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FOUNDATION OR CONTRIBUTORS
19.\" BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
20.\" CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
21.\" SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
22.\" INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
23.\" CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
24.\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
25.\" POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
26.\"
27.Dd April 2, 2020
28.Dt GROUPS 7
29.Os
30.\"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm groups
33.Nd standard group names
34.\"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
35.Sh DESCRIPTION
36A standard
37.Nx
38installation has the following user group names:
39.\" These are currently sorted by gid; perhaps they should be sorted
40.\" lexicographically by name instead.
41.Bl -tag -width ".Em _tcpdump"
42.It Em wheel
43Users authorized to elevate themselves to the super-user privileges of
44the root user, meaning uid\~0.
45Normally the
46.Em wheel
47group has gid\~0.
48.Pp
49Users who are not in the group
50.Em wheel
51are never allowed by
52.Xr su 1
53to gain root privileges.
54.It Em daemon
55Used by the set-group-id
56.Pq Xr setuid 7
57programs
58.Xr lpq 1 ,
59.Xr lpr 1 ,
60and
61.Xr lprm 1 .
62.\" Unclear why.  Maybe used to be used by uucp stuff too, since
63.\" /var/spool/lock ownership is uucp:daemon?
64.It Em sys
65Historic group.
66Unused in modern
67.Nx .
68.It Em tty
69Used by the set-group-id
70.Pq Xr setuid 7
71programs
72.Xr wall 1
73and
74.Xr write 1
75to allow users to send messages to another tty even if they don't own
76it.
77Static tty device nodes in
78.Pa /dev
79are all in the group
80.Em tty ,
81and the
82.Xr mount_ptyfs 8
83program passes the gid of the
84.Em tty
85group to the kernel so that all nodes in
86.Pa /dev/pts
87or equivalent are in the group too.
88.It Em operator
89Users authorized to take backups of disk devices and shut down the
90machine.
91.Pp
92The disk device nodes in
93.Pa /dev
94such as
95.Pa /dev/rwd0a
96are in the group
97.Em operator
98and group-readable so users in the group can read from disk devices,
99for example with
100.Xr dump 8 .
101The tape device nodes in
102.Pa /dev
103such as
104.Pa /dev/rst0
105are in the group
106.Em operator
107and are both group-readable and group-writable so users in the group
108can write to tape devices.
109.Pp
110The
111.Xr shutdown 8
112program is executable only by root and members of the
113.Em operator
114group.
115.It Em mail
116Historic group.
117Unused in modern
118.Nx .
119.\" Is this true?  Hard to grep for this in src...
120.It Em bin
121Historic group.
122Unused in modern
123.Nx .
124.It Em wsrc
125Historic group.
126Unused in modern
127.Nx .
128.\" Actually it seems to be used in the set lists somehow, but it's
129.\" unclear to me how what the significance is.
130.It Em maildrop
131Used by the set-group-id
132.Pq Xr setuid 7
133programs
134.Xr postdrop 1
135and
136.Xr postqueue 1
137to submit to and examine the
138.Xr postfix 1
139mail queue at
140.Pa /var/spool/postfix/maildrop
141and
142.Pa /var/spool/postfix/public .
143.It Em postfix
144Primary group for the
145.Em postfix
146pseudo-user used by the
147.Xr postfix 1
148mail transfer agent.
149.\" Why are various subdirectories of /var/spool/postfix owned by
150.\" postfix:wheel and not postfix:postfix?
151.It Em games
152Used by various set-group-id
153.Pq Xr setuid 7
154games to maintain high-scores files and other common files in
155.Pa /var/games .
156.It Em named
157Primary group for the
158.Em named
159pseudo-user used by the
160.Xr named 8
161DNS nameserver daemon.
162.It Em ntpd
163Primary group for the
164.Em ntpd
165pseudo-user used by the
166.Xr ntpd 8
167network time protocol daemon.
168.It Em sshd
169Primary group for the
170.Em sshd
171pseudo-user used by the
172.Xr sshd 8
173secure shell daemon.
174.It Em _pflogd
175Primary group for the
176.Em _pflogd
177pseudo-user used by the
178.Xr pflogd 8
179log daemon with the
180.Xr pf 4
181packet filter.
182.It Em _rwhod
183Primary group for the
184.Em _rwhod
185pseudo-user used by the
186.Xr rwhod 8
187system status daemon.
188.It Em staff
189Staff users, in contrast to regular or guest users.
190Not used by
191.Nx ;
192available for the administrator's interpretation.
193.It Em _proxy
194Primary group for the
195.Em _proxy
196pseudo-user used by the
197.Xr ftp-proxy 8
198and
199.Xr tftp-proxy 8
200proxy daemons with packet filters such as
201.Xr pf 4
202or
203.Xr ipnat 4 .
204.It Em _timedc
205Primary group for the
206.Em _timedc
207pseudo-user used by the
208.Xr timedc 8
209tool to communicate with the
210.Xr timed 8
211time server daemon.
212.It Em _sdpd
213Primary group for the
214.Em _sdpd
215pseudo-user used by the
216.Xr sdpd 8
217Bluetooth service discovery protocol daemon.
218.It Em _httpd
219Primary group for the
220.Em _httpd
221pseudo-user used by the
222.Xr httpd 8 Pq bozohttpd
223web server.
224.It Em _mdnsd
225Primary group for the
226.Em _mdnsd
227pseudo-user used by the
228.Xr mdnsd 8
229multicast DNS and DNS service discovery daemon.
230.It Em _tests
231Primary group for the
232.Em _tests
233pseudo-user used by
234.Xr atf 7
235automatic tests that request to run unprivileged.
236.It Em _tcpdump
237Primary group for the
238.Em _tcpdump
239pseudo-user used by the
240.Xr tcpdump 8
241network traffic dumper and analyzer.
242.It Em _tss
243Primary group for the
244.Em _tss
245pseudo-user used by the
246.Xr tcsd 8
247.Sq Trusted Computing
248daemon to manage a TPM.
249.It Em _gpio
250Users authorized to read and write GPIO pins; see
251.Xr gpio 4
252and
253.Xr gpioctl 8 .
254.It Em _dhcpcd
255Primary group for the
256.Em _dhcpcd
257pseudo-user used by the
258.Xr dhcpcd 8
259DHCP Client Daemon.
260.It Em _rtadvd
261Primary group for the
262.Em _rtadvd
263pseudo-user used by the
264.Xr rtadvd 8
265IPv6 network router advertisement daemon.
266.It Em guest
267Guest users, in contrast to staff or regular users.
268Not used by
269.Nx ;
270available for the administrator's interpretation.
271.It Em _unbound
272Primary group for the
273.Em _unbound
274pseudo-user used by the
275.Xr unbound 8
276recursive DNS resolver.
277.It Em _nsd
278Primary group for the
279.Em _nsd
280pseudo-user used by the
281.Xr nsd 8
282authoritative DNS nameserver.
283.It Em nvmm
284Users authorized to use the
285.Xr nvmm 4
286.Nx
287Virtual Machine Monitor.
288.It Em nobody
289Primary group for the traditional
290.Em nobody
291pseudo-user.
292Modern practice is to assign to each different daemon its own separate
293pseudo-user account and group so that if one daemon is compromised it
294does not compromise all the other daemons.
295.It Em utmp
296Group of
297.Xr utmp 5
298login records.
299.\" Why?
300.It Em authpf
301Used by the set-group-id
302.Pq Xr setuid 7
303program
304.Xr authpf 8
305to configure authenticated gateways.
306.\" Does it actually use the sgid bit?  It's also suid root...
307.It Em users
308Regular users, in contrast to staff or guest users.
309.Pp
310Default primary group for new users, as set in the default
311.Xr usermgmt.conf 5
312file.
313Some administrators may instead prefer to assign to each user a unique
314group with the same name as the user by passing the
315.So
316.Fl g Cm "=uid"
317.Sc
318option to
319.Xr useradd 8 .
320.It Em dialer
321Users authorized to make outgoing modem calls.
322Unused in modern
323.Nx .
324.It Em nogroup
325Pseudo-group.
326.\" For...?
327.El
328.\"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
329.Sh SEE ALSO
330.Xr users 7
331