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Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2011 07:54:55 -0600
From: Eric Blake <eblake AT redhat DOT com>
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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Different commands give different groups
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On 09/30/2011 09:49 PM, gsingh93 wrote:
>
> Why do these two commands give different groups? It's the same user.

Because the effective gid set for the existing process differs from the 
recorded groups in /etc/groups - most likely, you've changed /etc/groups 
but haven't logged out and back in to start a new process hierarchy that 
uses the new groups.

>
> Gulshan AT GSJK-PC /etc
> $ id Gulshan
> uid=1000(Gulshan) gid=545(Users) groups=545(Users),0(root)

That's what the groups will be if a new process is started for Gulshan.

>
> Gulshan AT GSJK-PC /etc
> $ id
> uid=1000(Gulshan) gid=545(Users) groups=545(Users),513(None)

Whereas that's what the groups are now for the current process.

This aspect of your situation is not cygwin-specific, the same behavior 
can be observed in other OSs when you change the user database after a 
particular user already has a process started.

>
> Furthermore, the commands mkgroup and mkpasswd give the orginial states of
> their corresponding files instead of what I changed them to. Why is that?

This part is cygwin-specific - and the answer is that mkgroup and 
mkpasswd are querying Window's database of user information, not /etc 
(so that you can then populate /etc with information that matches the 
Window's database).  Windows doesn't care what you put in /etc, so the 
amount of changes you can make in those files that still have a 
worthwhile visible effect to cygwin processes is a bit limited.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake AT redhat DOT com    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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