utilities is done by calling gr_addgid() for each group to be
added (usually found by traversing /etc/group) then calling the
setgroups() system call after the group set has been created.
The gr_addgid() function (helpfully?) deduplicates the addition
of group members. So, if you call it to add a group member that
already exists, it is just dropped. Because group[0] is the
effective group-ID and is over-written when a setgid program
is run, The value in group[0] is usually duplicated so that
group value is not lost when a setgid program is run.
Historically this happened because the group value indicated
in the password file also appears in /etc/group (e.g., if you
are group staff in the password file, you will also appear in
the staff line in /etc/group). But, with the addition of the
deduplication, the attempt to add group staff was lost because
it already appeared in group[0]. So, the fix is to deduplicate
starting from group[1] which allows a duplicate of the entry in
group[0], but not in later entries.
There is some confusion about the setgroups system call because in
BSD it has (always) set the entire group including the egid group
(in group[0]). However, in Linux, it skips over group[0] and starts
setting from group[1]. See this comment from linux_setgroups:
/*
* cr_groups[0] holds egid. Setting the whole set from
* the supplied set will cause egid to be changed too.
* Keep cr_groups[0] unchanged to prevent that.
*/
To make it clear what the BSD setgroups system call does, I
added the following paragraph to the setgroups(2) manual page:
The first entry of the group array (gidset[0]) is used as the effective
group-ID for the process. This entry is over-written when a setgid
program is run. To avoid losing access to the privileges of the
gidset[0] entry, it should be duplicated later in the group array.
By convention, this happens because the group value indicated in the
password file also appears in /etc/group. The group value in the
password file is placed in gidset[0] and that value then gets added a
second time when the /etc/group file is scanned to create the group set.
Reported by: Paul McMath paulm at tetrardus.net
Reviewed by: kib
MFC after: 2 weeks
Renumber cluase 4 to 3, per what everybody else did when BSD granted
them permission to remove clause 3. My insistance on keeping the same
numbering for legal reasons is too pedantic, so give up on that point.
Submitted by: Jan Schaumann <jschauma@stevens.edu>
Pull Request: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/pull/96
system callers of getgroups(), getgrouplist(), and setgroups() to
allocate buffers dynamically. Specifically, allocate a buffer of size
sysconf(_SC_NGROUPS_MAX)+1 (+2 in a few cases to allow for overflow).
This (or similar gymnastics) is required for the code to actually follow
the POSIX.1-2008 specification where {NGROUPS_MAX} may differ at runtime
and where getgroups may return {NGROUPS_MAX}+1 results on systems like
FreeBSD which include the primary group.
In id(1), don't pointlessly add the primary group to the list of all
groups, it is always the first result from getgroups(). In principle
the old code was more portable, but this was only done in one of the two
places where getgroups() was called to the overall effect was pointless.
Document the actual POSIX requirements in the getgroups(2) and
setgroups(2) manpages. We do not yet support a dynamic NGROUPS, but we
may in the future.
MFC after: 2 weeks
Stop calling system calls "function calls".
Use "The .Fn system call" a-la "The .Nm utility".
When referring to a non-BSD implementation in
the HISTORY section, call syscall a function,
to be safe.
track.
The $Id$ line is normally at the bottom of the main comment block in the
man page, separated from the rest of the manpage by an empty comment,
like so;
.\" $Id$
.\"
If the immediately preceding comment is a @(#) format ID marker than the
the $Id$ will line up underneath it with no intervening blank lines.
Otherwise, an additional blank line is inserted.
Approved by: bde
in a bunch of man pages.
Use the correct .Bx (BSD UNIX) or .At (AT&T UNIX) macros
instead of explicitly specifying the version in the text
in a bunch of man pages.