netgroup(5)

NAME
       netgroup - specify network groups

DESCRIPTION
       The  netgroup file  defines "netgroups", which are sets of
       (host, user, domain) tuples, used for permission  checking
       when doing remote mounts, remote logins and remote shells.

       Each line in the file consists of a netgroup name followed
       by a by a list of members. Where members is either another
       netgroup name, or a triple:
              (host, user, domain)

       where the host , user , and domain are  character  strings
       for the correspoinding components. Any of the three fields
       can be empty, in which case it specify  a  "wildcard",  or
       may consist of the string "-" to specify "no valid value".
       The domain field must either be the local domain  name  or
       empty  for  the netgroup entry to be used. This field does
       not limit the netgroup or  provide  security.  The  domain
       field  refers  to the domain in which the triple is valid,
       not the domain containing the the trusted host.

       A gateway machine should  be  listed  under  all  possible
       hostnames by which it may be recognized:
              gateway (server,,) (server-sn,,) (server-bb,,)

       The  getnetgrent  functions  should  normally  be  used to
       access the netgroup database.

FILES
       /etc/netgroup

SEE ALSO
       getnetgrent(3) exports(5) makedbm(8) ypserv(8) 

WARNINGS
       The  triple  (,,domain)  allows  all  users  and  machines
       trusted  access,  and  has  the  same effect as the triple
       (,,). Use the host  and  user  fields  of  the  triple  to
       restrict  the  access  correctly to a specific set of mem-
       bers.

BUGS
       The Linux libc  does  not  query  the  /etc/netgroup  file
       directly, it only querys the NIS server for the groups. So
       the netgroup database must be stared  in  the  form  of  a
       hashed  dbm  database just like the passwd(5) and group(5)
       databases.

AUTHOR
       Thorsten Kukuk lt;kukuk@uni-paderborn.de