GROUPADD(8)

NAME
groupadd - Create a new group

SYNOPSIS

groupadd [-g gid [-o]] [-f] group

DESCRIPTION
The groupadd command creates a new group account using the values specified on the command line and the default values from the system. The new group will be entered into the system files as needed.

OPTIONS
The options which apply to the groupadd command are:

-f  This option causes to just exit with success status if the specified group already exists. With -g, if specified gid already exists, other (unique) gid is chosen (i.e. -g is turned off).

-g gid
    The numerical value of the group's ID. This value must be unique, unless the -o option is used. The value must be non-negative. The default is to use the smallest ID value greater than 999 and greater than every other group. Values between 0 and 999 are typically reserved for system accounts.

RESTRICTIONS
Currently, the shadow suite enforces the following restrictions on group names:
- must begin with a lower case letter or underscore
- can only contain lower case letters, underscores, and dashes
- regex for these requirements: [a-z_][a-z0-9_-]*
Normally shadow enforces a 16 character limit, but Gentoo adds patches to remove it.

FILES
/etc/group    - group account information
/etc/gshadow    - secure group account information

EXIT VALUES

The groupadd command exits with the following values:
    0    - success
    2    - invalid command syntax
    3    - invalid argument to option
    4    - gid not unique (when -o not used)
    9    - group name not unique
    10    - can't update group file

SEE ALSO
chfn(1), chsh(1), passwd(1), groupdel(8), groupmod(8), gpasswd(1), useradd(8), userdel(8), usermod(8)

AUTHOR
Julianne Frances Haugh (jockgrrl@ix.netcom.com)