groups and gnome-terminal

Mikkel L. Ellertson mikkel at infinity-ltd.com
Tue Aug 7 13:56:47 UTC 2007


Fernando Apesteguía wrote:
> On 8/7/07, Rick Stevens <rstevens at internap.com> wrote:
>>
>> Closing and opening a gnome-terminal does not log the user in...the
>> terminal is part of the user's existing session.
> 
> But the gnome application to manage users and groups do it well... no
> login is required for it.
> 
I don't think you understood Rik's answer. The changes you make
using the gnome application do NOT affect the currently logged in
users. They only see the changes after they log out, and log back in
again. One way to think of it is that /etc/groups is a config file
that is only read when the user logs in. If you change the file
after he is logged in, he does not see the change, because he has
already looked at the config file. The next time he logs in, he will
read the file again, and see the changes.

Another way to look at it is that when a user logs in, they make a
local copy of their portion of the groups file. You are changing the
master copy, but the logged in users are still working off their
local copy. So they do not see the changes you just made in the
master copy. (Not entirely accurate, but close enough...)


Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

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