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NEWGRP(1) General Commands Manual NEWGRP(1) NAME newgrp -- change to a new group SYNOPSIS newgrp [-l] [group] DESCRIPTION The newgrp utility creates a new shell execution environment with modified real and effective group IDs. The options are as follows: -l Simulate a full login. The environment and umask are set to what would be expected if the user actually logged in again. If the group operand is present, a new shell is started with the specified effective and real group IDs. The user will be prompted for a password if they are not a member of the specified group. Otherwise, the real, effective and supplementary group IDs are restored to those from the current user's password database entry. EXIT STATUS The newgrp utility attempts to start the shell regardless of whether group IDs were successfully changed. If an error occurs and the shell cannot be started, newgrp exits >0. Oth- erwise, the exit status of newgrp is the exit status of the shell. EXAMPLES Create a new group, foo, with pw(8): pw group add foo Set the group password: pw group mod foo -h 0 As a non-root user, switch to the group: newgrp foo SEE ALSO csh(1), groups(1), login(1), sh(1), su(1), umask(1), group(5), passwd(5), environ(7), groups(7) STANDARDS The newgrp utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 ("POSIX.1"). HISTORY A newgrp utility appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. BUGS For security reasons, the newgrp utility is normally installed without the setuid bit. To enable it, run the following command: chmod u+s /usr/bin/newgrp Group passwords are inherently insecure as there is no way to stop users obtaining the password hash from the group database. Their use is discour- aged. Instead, users should simply be added to the necessary groups. FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly April 19, 2026 NEWGRP(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | STANDARDS | HISTORY | BUGS
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