10.6 Reading the Group Database

Much of the discussion presented in Reading the User Database applies to the group database as well. Although there has traditionally been a well-known file (/etc/group) in a well-known format, the POSIX standard only provides a set of C library routines (<grp.h> and getgrent()) for accessing the information. Even though this file may exist, it may not have complete information. Therefore, as with the user database, it is necessary to have a small C program that generates the group database as its output. grcat, a C program that “cats” the group database, is as follows:

/*
 * grcat.c
 *
 * Generate a printable version of the group database.
 */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <grp.h>

int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    struct group *g;
    int i;

    while ((g = getgrent()) != NULL) {
        printf("%s:%s:%ld:", g->gr_name, g->gr_passwd,
                                     (long) g->gr_gid);
        for (i = 0; g->gr_mem[i] != NULL; i++) {
            printf("%s", g->gr_mem[i]);

            if (g->gr_mem[i+1] != NULL)
                putchar(',');
        }

        putchar('\n');
    }
    endgrent();
    return 0;
}

Each line in the group database represents one group. The fields are separated with colons and represent the following information:

Group Name

The group’s name.

Group Password

The group’s encrypted password. In practice, this field is never used; it is usually empty or set to ‘*’.

Group ID Number

The group’s numeric group ID number; the association of name to number must be unique within the file. (On some systems it’s a C long, and not an int. Thus, we cast it to long for all cases.)

Group Member List

A comma-separated list of usernames. These users are members of the group. Modern Unix systems allow users to be members of several groups simultaneously. If your system does, then there are elements "group1" through "groupN" in PROCINFO for those group ID numbers. (Note that PROCINFO is a gawk extension; see section Predefined Variables.)

Here is what running grcat might produce:

$ grcat
-| wheel:*:0:arnold
-| nogroup:*:65534:
-| daemon:*:1:
-| kmem:*:2:
-| staff:*:10:arnold,miriam,andy
-| other:*:20:
…

Here are the functions for obtaining information from the group database. There are several, modeled after the C library functions of the same names:

# group.awk --- functions for dealing with the group file

BEGIN {
    # Change to suit your system
    _gr_awklib = "/usr/local/libexec/awk/"
}

function _gr_init(    oldfs, oldrs, olddol0, grcat,
                             using_fw, using_fpat, n, a, i)
{
    if (_gr_inited)
        return

    oldfs = FS
    oldrs = RS
    olddol0 = $0
    using_fw = (PROCINFO["FS"] == "FIELDWIDTHS")
    using_fpat = (PROCINFO["FS"] == "FPAT")
    FS = ":"
    RS = "\n"

    grcat = _gr_awklib "grcat"
    while ((grcat | getline) > 0) {
        if ($1 in _gr_byname)
            _gr_byname[$1] = _gr_byname[$1] "," $4
        else
            _gr_byname[$1] = $0
        if ($3 in _gr_bygid)
            _gr_bygid[$3] = _gr_bygid[$3] "," $4
        else
            _gr_bygid[$3] = $0

        n = split($4, a, "[ \t]*,[ \t]*")
        for (i = 1; i <= n; i++)
            if (a[i] in _gr_groupsbyuser)
                _gr_groupsbyuser[a[i]] = _gr_groupsbyuser[a[i]] " " $1
            else
                _gr_groupsbyuser[a[i]] = $1

        _gr_bycount[++_gr_count] = $0
    }
    close(grcat)
    _gr_count = 0
    _gr_inited++
    FS = oldfs
    if (using_fw)
        FIELDWIDTHS = FIELDWIDTHS
    else if (using_fpat)
        FPAT = FPAT
    RS = oldrs
    $0 = olddol0
}

The BEGIN rule sets a private variable to the directory where grcat is stored. Because it is used to help out an awk library routine, we have chosen to put it in /usr/local/libexec/awk. You might want it to be in a different directory on your system.

These routines follow the same general outline as the user database routines (see section Reading the User Database). The _gr_inited variable is used to ensure that the database is scanned no more than once. The _gr_init() function first saves FS, RS, and $0, and then sets FS and RS to the correct values for scanning the group information. It also takes care to note whether FIELDWIDTHS or FPAT is being used, and to restore the appropriate field-splitting mechanism.

The group information is stored in several associative arrays. The arrays are indexed by group name (_gr_byname), by group ID number (_gr_bygid), and by position in the database (_gr_bycount). There is an additional array indexed by username (_gr_groupsbyuser), which is a space-separated list of groups to which each user belongs.

Unlike in the user database, it is possible to have multiple records in the database for the same group. This is common when a group has a large number of members. A pair of such entries might look like the following:

tvpeople:*:101:johnny,jay,arsenio
tvpeople:*:101:david,conan,tom,joan

For this reason, _gr_init() looks to see if a group name or group ID number is already seen. If so, the usernames are simply concatenated onto the previous list of users.⁷⁴

Finally, _gr_init() closes the pipeline to grcat, restores FS (and FIELDWIDTHS or FPAT, if necessary), RS, and $0, initializes _gr_count to zero (it is used later), and makes _gr_inited nonzero.

The getgrnam() function takes a group name as its argument, and if that group exists, it is returned. Otherwise, it relies on the array reference to a nonexistent element to create the element with the null string as its value:

function getgrnam(group)
{
    _gr_init()
    return _gr_byname[group]
}

The getgrgid() function is similar; it takes a numeric group ID and looks up the information associated with that group ID:

function getgrgid(gid)
{
    _gr_init()
    return _gr_bygid[gid]
}

The getgruser() function does not have a C counterpart. It takes a username and returns the list of groups that have the user as a member:

function getgruser(user)
{
    _gr_init()
    return _gr_groupsbyuser[user]
}

The getgrent() function steps through the database one entry at a time. It uses _gr_count to track its position in the list:

function getgrent()
{
    _gr_init()
    if (++_gr_count in _gr_bycount)
        return _gr_bycount[_gr_count]

    return ""
}

The endgrent() function resets _gr_count to zero so that getgrent() can start over again:

function endgrent()
{
    _gr_count = 0
}

As with the user database routines, each function calls _gr_init() to initialize the arrays. Doing so only incurs the extra overhead of running grcat if these functions are used (as opposed to moving the body of _gr_init() into a BEGIN rule).

Most of the work is in scanning the database and building the various associative arrays. The functions that the user calls are themselves very simple, relying on awk’s associative arrays to do work.

The id program in Printing Out User Information uses these functions.