Description of problem: I used the Red Hat User Manager gui (under System Settings -> Users and Groups) to change the groups of my users. In particular, I added a new user (without giving them an individual group) and put them in the group "physics". I also removed him from the group "users". I then edited my own user profile and added the "physics" group to it, though I left the primary group as something else. The idea was that we would be in the same group so that we could share some files. I opened a shell and entered su mode. I then entered the /home/ directory and changed the permissions of the users files to readable and executable for users in the same group (chmod g+rx username). I tried to use Nautilus to access his files. It said that I did not have the permissions necessary to access his file system. I went back to the shell and checked the permissions (ls -lh). The permissions were set correctly, but the groups were not changed. What I found was that the new user was in group "users" and not "physics". And, I was in the group "physics" although my primary group should be "christensen". I went back to Red Hat User Manager and checked that everything was entered correctly. It was. I clicked the refresh button a few times. I closed it and opened it again. The Red Hat User Manager always had the groupings I intended. Namely, both my friend and myself in the "physics" group. However, I was never able to access his files and on the command line, the groups remained: my friend in "users" and me in "physics". Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):Whatever comes with RH9.0 How reproducible:very. I did it again with a test account. Steps to Reproduce: 1.Open Red Hat User Manager. Click on Add User. Enter test in user name, enter password, unclick "Create a private group for the user". Click ok. 2.Click on the new user test and click Properties. Click the group tab. Check the "physics" group and uncheck the "users" group. Click OK. Look at the list of users. The test user's primary group is "physics". All seems to be good. 3.Open shell and enter su mode. change to home directory (cd /home/) and list files (ls -lh) the output of the new user is: drwx------ 4 test users 4.0K Jun 2 15:08 test 3.Perhaps "physics" isn't the primary group. Change permissions. (chmod g+rx test) and list again (ls -lh): drwxr-x--- 4 test users 4.0K Jun 2 15:08 test 4.Exit su mode and try entering test's files (cd /home/test/): bash: cd: test: Permission denied 5.Check the Red Hat User Manager. Hasn't changed. It still has the intended group information. It just doesn't seem to be communicated to the actual linux user definitions. 6.I learned something new when I did this "test" example. After I was done, I used the Red Hat User Manager to delete this new "test" user. It dissapeared. I thought it was gone. Then, I tried to list the home contents again using the shell. I got: drwxr-x--- 4 503 users 4.0K Jun 2 15:08 test It's still there! That's about it. If you need additional information, feel free to contact me. Thanks
My sincere apologies. It turns out that the groups of the users did change. The changes did show up in /etc/passwd and /etc/group. What didn't change was the group ownership of the files. I didn't understand this. I had to use chgrp for this. Also, I was mistaken about the deletion of the "test" user account. I see now that the the user was removed from /etc/passwd but that the file tree of "test" was not removed. This is most likely in case the files are important. Once again, I apologize.