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 May 21, 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 audio 187Used to access any device node created by 188.Xr sound 4 , 189device drivers, and 190.Xr virtual_oss 8 . 191.It Em video 192Used for access to 193.Pa /dev/drm/* 194devices, which are used for GPU hardware acceleration. 195See 196.Xr drm 7 . 197.It Em realtime 198Used by 199.Xr mac_priority 4 200to allow members of this group to run threads and processes with 201realtime scheduling priority. 202See also 203.Xr rtprio 1 . 204.It Em idletime 205Used by 206.Xr mac_priority 4 207to allow members of this group to run processes with idle scheduling 208priority. 209See also 210.Xr idprio 1 . 211.It Em bind 212Used to be used as primary group for the 213.Em bind 214pseudo-user used by 215.Xr named 8 216Internet domain name server, which has been removed from the base system in 217.Fx 10.0 . 218.It Em unbound 219Primary group for the 220.Em unbound 221pseudo-user used by the 222.Xr local-unbound 8 223recursive DNS resolver. 224.It Em proxy 225Primary group for the 226.Em proxy 227pseudo-user used by the 228.Xr ftp-proxy 8 229proxy daemon with packet filters such as 230.Xr pf 4 . 231.It Em authpf 232Used by the set-group-id program 233.Xr authpf 8 234to configure authenticated gateways. 235.It Em _pflogd 236Primary group for the 237.Em _pflogd 238pseudo-user used by the 239.Xr pflogd 8 240log daemon with the 241.Xr pf 4 242packet filter. 243.It Em _dhcp 244Primary group for the 245.Em _dhcp 246pseudo-user used by the 247.Xr dhclient 8 248DHCP Client. 249.It Em dialer 250Users authorized to make outgoing modem calls (see 251.Xr cu 1 252and 253.Pa /dev/cuauN 254devices). 255.It Em network 256Historic group. 257Unused in modern 258.Fx . 259.It Em audit 260Primary group for the 261.Em auditdistd 262pseudo-user used by 263.Xr auditd 8 264and 265.Xr auditdistd 8 266audit daemons. 267.It Em www 268Historic group for accessing World Wide Web. 269Unused in modern 270.Fx . 271.It Em u2f 272Used for users who need to access 273.Pa /dev/u2f/* 274devices (see 275.Xr u2f 4 ) . 276.It Em ntpd 277Primary group for the 278.Em ntpd 279pseudo-user used by the 280.Xr ntpd 8 281network time protocol daemon. 282.It Em _ypldap 283Primary group for the 284.Em _ypldap 285pseudo-user used by 286.Xr ypldap 8 287daemon. 288.It Em hast 289Primary group for the 290.Em hast 291pseudo-user used by 292Highly Available Storage daemon 293.Xr hastd 8 . 294.It Em tests 295Primary group for the 296.Em tests 297pseudo-user used by 298automatic tests that request to run unprivileged. 299See 300.Xr tests 7 . 301.It Em nogroup 302Pseudo-group (fake group). 303It differs from group 304.Em nobody 305in way that 306.Em nogroup 307doesn't have a dedicated user for it. 308For instance, this group is used for users 309.Em tty 310and 311.Em kmem . 312.It Em nobody 313Primary group for the traditional 314.Em nobody 315pseudo-user. 316Modern practice is to assign to each different daemon its own separate 317pseudo-user account and group so that if one daemon is compromised it 318does not compromise all the other daemons. 319.Pp 320See also group 321.Em nogroup . 322.El 323.Sh FILES 324.Bl -tag -width "/usr/src/etc/group" -compact 325.It Pa /etc/group 326Main group permissions file. 327.It Pa /usr/src/etc/group 328Group permissions file for the base system. 329.It Pa /usr/ports/GIDs 330A list of GIDs (group IDs) reserved for ports (see 331.Xr ports 7 ) . 332.El 333.Pp 334See 335.Xr group 5 336for the format of abovementioned files. 337.Sh SEE ALSO 338.Xr chgrp 1 , 339.Xr groups 1 , 340.Xr id 1 , 341.Xr newgrp 1 , 342.Xr group 5 , 343.Xr pw 8 344.Sh HISTORY 345The 346.Nm 347manual page appeared in 348.Nx 10.0 349and 350.Fx 15.1 . 351