Group (database)

group is a name service database used to store group information on Unix-like operating systems.

The sources for the group database (and hence the sources for groups on a system) are configured, like other name service databases, in nsswitch.conf.

Contents

Seeing the available groups on a Unix system

The contents of the group database (and available groups) can be seen with a variety of tools:

Command line

The getent command can be used to fetch group information.

Fetching a list of all available groups

getent group

Fetching a specific group

For a specific group called 'users':

getent group users

Python