GRPCK(8)                  System Management Commands                  GRPCK(8)

NAME

       grpck - verify integrity of group files

SYNOPSIS

       grpck [-r] [group shadow]

DESCRIPTION

       grpck verifies the integrity of the system authentication information.
       All entries in the /etc/group and /etc/gshadow are checked to see that
       the entry has the proper format and valid data in each field. The user
       is prompted to delete entries that are improperly formatted or which
       have other uncorrectable errors.

       Checks are made to verify that each entry has:

       ?  the correct number of fields

       ?  a unique group name

       ?  a valid list of members and administrators

The checks for correct number of fields and unique group name are fatal. If
the entry has the wrong number of fields, the user will be prompted to delete
the entire line. If the user does not answer affirmatively, all further checks
are bypassed. An entry with a duplicated group name is prompted for deletion,
but the remaining checks will still be made. All other errors are warnings and

the user is encouraged to run the groupmod command to correct the error.

The commands which operate on the /etc/group file are not able to alter

corrupted or duplicated entries. grpck should be used in those circumstances

to remove the offending entry.

OPTIONS

       By default, grpck operates on the files /etc/group and /etc/gshadow.
       The user may select alternate files with the group and shadow
       parameters. Additionally, the user may execute the command in read-only
       mode by specifying the -r flag. This causes all questions regarding
       changes to be answered no without user intervention.  grpck can also
       sort entries in /etc/group and /etc/gshadow by GID. To run it in sort
       mode pass it -s flag. No checks are performed then, it just sorts.

FILES

       /etc/group
          Group account information.

       /etc/gshadow
          Secure group account information.

       /etc/passwd
          User account information.

SEE ALSO

       group(5), passwd(5), shadow(5), groupmod(8).

EXIT VALUES

       The grpck command exits with the following values:

       0  success

       1  invalid command syntax

       2  one or more bad group entries

       3  can't open group files

       4  can't lock group files

       5  can't update group files

System Management Commands        06/24/2006                          GRPCK(8)