1.\" $NetBSD: groups.7,v 1.8 2020/04/02 20:57:20 roy Exp $ 2.\" 3.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause 4.\" 5.\" Copyright (c) 2020 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. 6.\" All rights reserved. 7.\" 8.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 9.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 10.\" are met: 11.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 13.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 14.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 15.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 16.\" 17.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE NETBSD FOUNDATION, INC. AND CONTRIBUTORS 18.\" ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED 19.\" TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR 20.\" PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FOUNDATION OR CONTRIBUTORS 21.\" BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR 22.\" CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF 23.\" SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS 24.\" INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN 25.\" CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) 26.\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE 27.\" POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 28.\" 29.Dd April 19, 2026 30.Dt GROUPS 7 31.Os 32.Sh NAME 33.Nm groups 34.Nd standard group names 35.Sh DESCRIPTION 36A standard 37.Fx 38installation has the following user group names: 39.Bl -tag -width "realtime" 40.It Em wheel 41Users authorized to elevate themselves to the super-user privileges of 42the root user, meaning uid\~0. 43Normally the 44.Em wheel 45group has gid\~0. 46.Pp 47Users who are not in the group 48.Em wheel 49are never allowed by 50.Xr su 1 51to gain root privileges. 52.It Em daemon 53Used by the set-group-id programs 54.Xr lpr 1 55and 56.Xr rwho 1 . 57.It Em kmem 58Used by the set-group-id programs (like 59.Xr ktrdump 8 ) 60that need to access kernel memory 61.Po Pa /dev/mem 62and 63.Pa /dev/kmem 64are in the group 65.Em kmem 66.Pc . 67See 68.Xr mem 4 . 69.It Em sys 70Historic group. 71Unused in modern 72.Fx . 73.It Em tty 74Used by the set-group-id programs 75.Xr wall 1 76and 77.Xr write 1 78to allow users to send messages to another tty even if they don't own 79it (static tty device nodes 80.Pa /dev/pts/* 81are all in the group 82.Em tty ) . 83See 84.Xr tty 4 . 85.It Em operator 86Users authorized to take backups of disk devices and shut down the 87machine. 88.Pp 89The disk device nodes 90(such as 91.Pa /dev/ada0 ) 92are in the group 93.Em operator 94and group-readable so users in the group can read from disk devices, 95for example with 96.Xr dump 8 . 97The tape device nodes 98(such as 99.Pa /dev/sa0 ) 100are in the group 101.Em operator 102and are both group-readable and group-writable so users in the group 103can write to tape devices. 104.Pp 105The 106.Xr shutdown 8 107program is executable only by root and members of the 108.Em operator 109group. 110.It Em mail 111Used by mail agents (like 112.Xr dma 8 ) . 113.Pp 114By default, root mail 115.Pq Pa /var/mail/root 116is in the 117.Em mail 118group. 119.It Em bin 120Historic group. 121Unused in modern 122.Fx . 123.It Em news 124Historic group. 125Unused in modern 126.Fx . 127.It Em man 128Historic group; used to be used for managing manual pages (see 129.Xr man 1 ) . 130.It Em games 131Used by various set-group-id games to maintain high-scores files 132and other common files in 133.Pa /var/games . 134The members of this group are also allowed to access 135.Pa /dev/input/event* 136device nodes (see 137.Xr hgame 4 ) . 138See also 139.Xr intro 6 . 140.It Em ftp 141Used to be used by 142.Xr sysinstall 8 143(which is now replaced with 144.Xr bsdinstall 8 ) 145for setting up anonymous FTP. 146Unused in modern 147.Fx . 148.It Em staff 149Staff users, in contrast to guest users (see 150.Em guest 151group). 152Not used by 153.Fx ; 154available for the administrator's interpretation. 155See 156.Xr security 7 157for some recommendations on managing accounts in 158.Em staff 159group. 160.It Em sshd 161Primary group for the 162.Em sshd 163pseudo-user used by the 164.Xr sshd 8 165secure shell daemon. 166.It Em smmsp 167Primary group for user 168.Em smmsp , 169which is used by 170.Xr sendmail 8 171if no non-root users were configured for running it. 172.Pp 173The name of the group means "SendMail Message Submission Program". 174.It Em mailnull 175Used by electronic mail transport agent 176.Xr sendmail 8 177as group for its default user 178.Em mailnull . 179.It Em guest 180Guest users, in contrast to staff users (see 181.Em staff 182group). 183Not used by 184.Fx ; 185available for the administrator's interpretation. 186.It Em video 187Used for access to 188.Pa /dev/drm/* 189devices, which are used for GPU hardware acceleration. 190See 191.Xr drm 7 . 192.It Em realtime 193Used by 194.Xr mac_priority 4 195to allow members of this group to run threads and processes with 196realtime scheduling priority. 197See also 198.Xr rtprio 1 . 199.It Em idletime 200Used by 201.Xr mac_priority 4 202to allow members of this group to run processes with idle scheduling 203priority. 204See also 205.Xr idprio 1 . 206.It Em bind 207Used to be used as primary group for the 208.Em bind 209pseudo-user used by 210.Xr named 8 211Internet domain name server, which has been removed from the base system in 212.Fx 10.0 . 213.It Em unbound 214Primary group for the 215.Em unbound 216pseudo-user used by the 217.Xr local-unbound 8 218recursive DNS resolver. 219.It Em proxy 220Primary group for the 221.Em proxy 222pseudo-user used by the 223.Xr ftp-proxy 8 224proxy daemon with packet filters such as 225.Xr pf 4 . 226.It Em authpf 227Used by the set-group-id program 228.Xr authpf 8 229to configure authenticated gateways. 230.It Em _pflogd 231Primary group for the 232.Em _pflogd 233pseudo-user used by the 234.Xr pflogd 8 235log daemon with the 236.Xr pf 4 237packet filter. 238.It Em _dhcp 239Primary group for the 240.Em _dhcp 241pseudo-user used by the 242.Xr dhclient 8 243DHCP Client. 244.It Em dialer 245Users authorized to make outgoing modem calls (see 246.Xr cu 1 247and 248.Pa /dev/cuauN 249devices). 250.It Em network 251Historic group. 252Unused in modern 253.Fx . 254.It Em audit 255Primary group for the 256.Em auditdistd 257pseudo-user used by 258.Xr auditd 8 259and 260.Xr auditdistd 8 261audit daemons. 262.It Em www 263Historic group for accessing World Wide Web. 264Unused in modern 265.Fx . 266.It Em u2f 267Used for users who need to access 268.Pa /dev/u2f/* 269devices (see 270.Xr u2f 4 ) . 271.It Em ntpd 272Primary group for the 273.Em ntpd 274pseudo-user used by the 275.Xr ntpd 8 276network time protocol daemon. 277.It Em _ypldap 278Primary group for the 279.Em _ypldap 280pseudo-user used by 281.Xr ypldap 8 282daemon. 283.It Em hast 284Primary group for the 285.Em hast 286pseudo-user used by 287Highly Available Storage daemon 288.Xr hastd 8 . 289.It Em tests 290Primary group for the 291.Em tests 292pseudo-user used by 293automatic tests that request to run unprivileged. 294See 295.Xr tests 7 . 296.It Em nogroup 297Pseudo-group (fake group). 298It differs from group 299.Em nobody 300in way that 301.Em nogroup 302doesn't have a dedicated user for it. 303For instance, this group is used for users 304.Em tty 305and 306.Em kmem . 307.It Em nobody 308Primary group for the traditional 309.Em nobody 310pseudo-user. 311Modern practice is to assign to each different daemon its own separate 312pseudo-user account and group so that if one daemon is compromised it 313does not compromise all the other daemons. 314.Pp 315See also group 316.Em nogroup . 317.El 318.Sh FILES 319.Bl -tag -width "/usr/src/etc/group" -compact 320.It Pa /etc/group 321Main group permissions file. 322.It Pa /usr/src/etc/group 323Group permissions file for the base system. 324.It Pa /usr/ports/GIDs 325A list of GIDs (group IDs) reserved for ports (see 326.Xr ports 7 ) . 327.El 328.Pp 329See 330.Xr group 5 331for the format of abovementioned files. 332.Sh SEE ALSO 333.Xr chgrp 1 , 334.Xr groups 1 , 335.Xr id 1 , 336.Xr newgrp 1 , 337.Xr group 5 , 338.Xr pw 8 339.Sh HISTORY 340The 341.Nm 342manual page appeared in 343.Nx 10.0 344and 345.Fx 15.1 . 346