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PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT |
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NEWGRP(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual NEWGRP(1P)
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The
Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or
the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
newgrp — change to a new group
newgrp [-l] [group]
The newgrp utility shall create a new shell execution environment
with a new real and effective group identification. Of the
attributes listed in Section 2.12, Shell Execution Environment,
the new shell execution environment shall retain the working
directory, file creation mask, and exported variables from the
previous environment (that is, open files, traps, unexported
variables, alias definitions, shell functions, and set options may
be lost). All other aspects of the process environment that are
preserved by the exec family of functions defined in the System
Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017 shall also be preserved by
newgrp; whether other aspects are preserved is unspecified.
A failure to assign the new group identifications (for example,
for security or password-related reasons) shall not prevent the
new shell execution environment from being created.
The newgrp utility shall affect the supplemental groups for the
process as follows:
* On systems where the effective group ID is normally in the
supplementary group list (or whenever the old effective group
ID actually is in the supplementary group list):
-- If the new effective group ID is also in the supplementary
group list, newgrp shall change the effective group ID.
-- If the new effective group ID is not in the supplementary
group list, newgrp shall add the new effective group ID to
the list, if there is room to add it.
* On systems where the effective group ID is not normally in the
supplementary group list (or whenever the old effective group
ID is not in the supplementary group list):
-- If the new effective group ID is in the supplementary
group list, newgrp shall delete it.
-- If the old effective group ID is not in the supplementary
list, newgrp shall add it if there is room.
Note:
The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017 does not specify
whether the effective group ID of a process is included in its
supplementary group list.
With no operands, newgrp shall change the effective group back to
the groups identified in the user's user entry, and shall set the
list of supplementary groups to that set in the user's group
database entries.
If the first argument is '-', the results are unspecified.
If a password is required for the specified group, and the user is
not listed as a member of that group in the group database, the
user shall be prompted to enter the correct password for that
group. If the user is listed as a member of that group, no
password shall be requested. If no password is required for the
specified group, it is implementation-defined whether users not
listed as members of that group can change to that group. Whether
or not a password is required, implementation-defined system
accounting or security mechanisms may impose additional
authorization restrictions that may cause newgrp to write a
diagnostic message and suppress the changing of the group
identification.
The newgrp utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines, except for
the unspecified usage of '-'.
The following option shall be supported:
-l (The letter ell.) Change the environment to what would
be expected if the user actually logged in again.
The following operand shall be supported:
group A group name from the group database or a non-negative
numeric group ID. Specifies the group ID to which the
real and effective group IDs shall be set. If group is a
non-negative numeric string and exists in the group
database as a group name (see getgrnam()), the numeric
group ID associated with that group name shall be used
as the group ID.
Not used.
The file /dev/tty shall be used to read a single line of text for
password checking, when one is required.
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
newgrp:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization
variables that are unset or null. (See the Base
Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
Internationalization Variables for the precedence of
internationalization variables used to determine the
values of locale categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values
of all the other internationalization variables.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences
of bytes of text data as characters (for example,
single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in
arguments).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
standard error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the
processing of LC_MESSAGES.
Default.
Not used.
The standard error shall be used for diagnostic messages and a
prompt string for a password, if one is required. Diagnostic
messages may be written in cases where the exit status is not
available. See the EXIT STATUS section.
None.
None.
If newgrp succeeds in creating a new shell execution environment,
whether or not the group identification was changed successfully,
the exit status shall be the exit status of the shell. Otherwise,
the following exit value shall be returned:
>0 An error occurred.
The invoking shell may terminate.
The following sections are informative.
There is no convenient way to enter a password into the group
database. Use of group passwords is not encouraged, because by
their very nature they encourage poor security practices. Group
passwords may disappear in the future.
A common implementation of newgrp is that the current shell uses
exec to overlay itself with newgrp, which in turn overlays itself
with a new shell after changing group. On some implementations,
however, this may not occur and newgrp may be invoked as a
subprocess.
The newgrp command is intended only for use from an interactive
terminal. It does not offer a useful interface for the support of
applications.
The exit status of newgrp is generally inapplicable. If newgrp is
used in a script, in most cases it successfully invokes a new
shell and the rest of the original shell script is bypassed when
the new shell exits. Used interactively, newgrp displays
diagnostic messages to indicate problems. But usage such as:
newgrp foo
echo $?
is not useful because the new shell might not have access to any
status newgrp may have generated (and most historical systems do
not provide this status). A zero status echoed here does not
necessarily indicate that the user has changed to the new group
successfully. Following newgrp with the id command provides a
portable means of determining whether the group change was
successful or not.
None.
Most historical implementations use one of the exec functions to
implement the behavior of newgrp. Errors detected before the exec
leave the environment unchanged, while errors detected after the
exec leave the user in a changed environment. While it would be
useful to have newgrp issue a diagnostic message to tell the user
that the environment changed, it would be inappropriate to require
this change to some historical implementations.
The password mechanism is allowed in the group database, but how
this would be implemented is not specified.
The newgrp utility was retained in this volume of POSIX.1‐2017,
even given the existence of the multiple group permissions feature
in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, for several
reasons. First, in some implementations, the group ownership of a
newly created file is determined by the group of the directory in
which the file is created, as allowed by the System Interfaces
volume of POSIX.1‐2017; on other implementations, the group
ownership of a newly created file is determined by the effective
group ID. On implementations of the latter type, newgrp allows
files to be created with a specific group ownership. Finally, many
implementations use the real group ID in accounting, and on such
systems, newgrp allows the accounting identity of the user to be
changed.
None.
Chapter 2, Shell Command Language, sh(1p)
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, exec(1p),
getgrnam(3p)
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
(C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between
this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard,
the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee
document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2017 NEWGRP(1P)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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