[oclug] shared user files question

[David F. Skoll]

On Wed, 6 Mar 2002, Derek Cunningham wrote:

> And alas, we encounter one of Unix's biggest downfall: the lack of access
> lists.

It's easy to work around, though.  You don't need ACL's for this
simple case.  And while ACL's are cool, they eventually become a bit
of a headache to manage.

Instead, use the common (Red Hat, Debian) trick of making each user a
member of his own group.  Then make a third group containing both
users.

In /etc/passwd:

user1:x:500:500:User 1:blahblahblah
user2:x:501:501:User 2:blahblahblah

In /etc/group:

user1:x:500:
user2:x:501
both:x:1000:user1,user2

Then put the files they both need to use in a directory owned by
group "both", readable and writable by group "both", and set the
sgid bit on the directory.  Magic... it works.

Regards,

David.