A group password in Linux

原文转载至：http://meinit.nl/a-group-password-in-linux

Have you ever heard of (or used) a group password in Linux? For me this strange concept was new, but here's what you can use it for.

A group password in Linux allows a user to temporarily (in a subshell) gain extra permissions of a group, after successfully entering the group password.

To set a group password use gpasswd:

# gpasswd finance
New Password:
Re-enter new password:

To gain those extra permissions you can use newgrp:

$ newgrp finance

Some of the disadvantages are:

1. Sharing a password is not good; a password should be personal.
2. You can also solve this by adding the user to a secondary group.
3. Another way to solve it is to use sudo.
4. Usage of the group password is not accountable.