osf1 man page for group

group(4)						     Kernel Interfaces Manual							  group(4)

NAME
       group - Group file

DESCRIPTION
       The  /etc/group	database contains the following information for each group: Group name Encrypted password Numerical group ID A comma-sepa-
       rated list of all users allowed in the group

       Note: Do not put any spaces between a comma and a username; otherwise, the username following the comma will not be  made  a  part  of  the
       desired group.

       The  /etc/group	file  is an ASCII file, with the fields separated by colons.  Each group is separated from the next by a new line.  If the
       password field is null, no password is demanded.

       Because of the encrypted passwords, it can and does have general read permission and can be used, for example, to map numerical	group  IDs
       to names.

       Note  that  commands  or  scripts used for adding users to groups are subject to the 225 character limit on line lengths.  However, you can
       split lines as appropriate.

RESTRICTIONS
       Increasing the number of groups that a user is in beyond 16 can affect services that use ONC RPC.  Tru64 UNIX ONC RPC  supports	up  to	32
       groups for compatibility with ULTRIX Version 4.2 and higher.  Other vendors may support only 16 groups.	ULTRIX versions before 4.2 support
       up to 8 groups.	Users who increase their group membership beyond 8 or 16 groups will not be able to NFS mount file  systems  from  servers
       that only support 8 or 16 groups over NFS. In addition, if root group membership is increased beyond 8 or 16, the NIS service will not work
       in a mixed NIS server environment where the servers support only 8 or 16 groups.  The addgroup command limits the length of a group name to
       eight characters or less.

FILES
       /etc/group

RELATED INFORMATION
       Commands:  addgroup(8), groupadd(8), adduser(8), groups(1), passwd(1)

       Functions:  setgroups(2)

       Routines:  initgroups(3)

       Files:  passwd(4)

       delim off

																	  group(4)