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Date:	Mon, 21 Jun 2010 22:21:06 -0400
From:	Ken <kstmp001 AT comcast DOT net>
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To:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject:	Re: cygwin 1.7.5, 'id -ng' fails when /etc/group is a symlink
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 >> When /etc/group is a symlink to a valid and correctly formatted file
 >> containing the group information elsewhere on the system (e.g.,
 >> /etc/group -> /etc/_group), 'id -ng' will always return 'mkgroup' as
 >> the users group.
 >>
 >> However, if I remove the /etc/group symlink and rename /etc/_group
 >> to /etc/group, then 'id -ng' returns the correct user group
 >> information ('None' in this case).
 >
 >Does the User's Guide help?
 >http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-specialnames.html#pathnames-etc
 >

Yes, tremendously!  And here I thought I had done my homework ...
obviously I failed.
I was all over that section reading up on fstab and the changes in the
CYGWIN environment variable options too ... and yet I still missed it.
Sorry for my oversight.  Thank you for pointing this out to me! :-)

 >> Also, for reference, I have been successfully using a symlink for
 >> the /etc/group and /etc/passwd files for years in Cygwin 1.5x
 >> without issue and I would like to continue doing so in 1.7x.

 >That won't be possible using Cygwin symlinks.  If you're running
 >Vista or later, you can try to make /etc/group a native NTFS symlink.
 >In your above example, for instance, in an elevated(!) shell:
 >
 >  bash$ cd /etc && cmd /c "mklink group _group

Now that I have "read" the documentation, I understand.  And, yes,
the native NTFS symlink method does indeed work in Windows 7.
Unfortunately, that will not help in my WinXP environments.  However,
native Windows shortcuts (.lnk files) will work for my purposes in
both OSes.  And, since the documentation for the special files in /etc
states that "These file are read using native Windows NT functions",
I presume that method would be acceptable in this case - I realize
that this is somewhat unorthodox, however.

Corinna, I thank you kindly for the assistance!

Ken


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