The netgroup table defines network wide groups used to check permissions for remote mounts, logins, and shells. The members of net groups used for remote mounts are workstations; for remote logins and shells, they are users.
Note: Users working on a client machine being served by a NIS+ server running in compatibility mode cannot run ypcat on the netgroup table. Doing so will give you results as if the table were empty even if it has entries.
The netgroup table has six columns:
| Column | Content | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Name | groupname | The name of the network group |
| Group | groupname | Another group that is part of this group |
| Host | hostname | The name of a host |
| User | username | A user's login name |
| Domain | domainname | A domain name |
| Comment | Comment | An optional comment about the entry |
The input file consists of a group name and any number of members:
groupname member-list...
The member list can contain the names of other net groups or an ordered member list with three fields or both:
member-list::=groupname | (hostname, username, domainname)
The first field of the member list specifies the name of a workstation that belongs to the group. The second field specifies the name of a user that belongs to the group. The third field specifies the domain in which the member specification is valid.
A missing field indicates a wildcard. For example, this net group includes all workstations and users in all domains:
everybody (,,)
A dash in a field is the opposite of a wildcard; it indicates that no workstations or users belong to the group. Here are two examples:
(host1, -,wiz.com.) (-,joe,wiz.com.)
The first specification includes one workstation, host1, in the wiz.com. domain, but excludes all users. The second specification includes one user in the wiz.com. domain, but excludes all workstations.