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Re: PR libc/1565

   From: Andreas Jaeger <aj@suse.de>
   Date: 15 Feb 2000 09:32:39 +0100

   Hi Mark,

   can you close this PR (Subject "getgroups() returns wrong number of
   supplementary groups") - or take appropriate actions if there're still
   remaining issues?

Well, I'm not sure what the right behaviour for initgroups() is.
Right now, if the group database contains duplicates, for example if
you have some like

   users:*:500:kettenis
      ....
   users:*:500:kettenis

the supplemental group ID's will include that group twice.  I believe
this is traditional UNIX behaviour (the BSD initgroups seems to behave
in a similar way).  I don't think there's anything wrong with this,
the system administrator should know what he's doing!

But in presence of NSS this has some wierd side-effects.  If you use

   group:	db files

in your /etc/nsswitch.conf (and the database files do really exist),
you'll certainly  have duplicates.  And even worse, if you don't
specify the `group' database in your /etc/nsswitch.conf, the default
is `compat [NOTFOUND=return] files'.  Since `compat' will also read
/etc/group, you'll also end up with duplicates.

I don't know if it is worth the trouble of finding a solution for this
`problem'.  It certainly isn't critical.  What is the opinion of other
hackers?

Mark
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