Unable to add entry in /etc/group

Question

Ran below commands to create a group

[root@u87 ~] # groupadd -g 2441 somegroup
groupadd: group 'somegroup' already exists
[root@u87 ~]# cat /etc/group | grep somegroup
[root@u87 ~]#
[root@u87 ~]#
[root@u87 ~]# 
[root@u87 ~]# cat /etc/system-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.5 (Maipo)

How do I understand this error?

@StephenKitt output is somegroup:*:2441:someuser. Does local groupname always sit in /etc/group? — overexchange, Sep 19 '18 at 15:02

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 19 '18 at 15:08

2

Groups (and other user information) can be defined in places other than /etc/group; e.g. LDAP. The sources of information are configured in /etc/nsswitch.conf.

To retrieve information from whatever sources are used, use getent:

getent group somegroup

You can use this to check the existence of a group before trying to add it:

getent group somegroup || groupadd -g 2441 somegroup

answered Sep 19 '18 at 15:08

Stephen Kitt

434,908

how to retrieve information of someuser from LDAP? getent user? – overexchange Sep 19 '18 at 15:12
@JeffSchaller getent user someuser does not work. I would like to know the uid – overexchange Sep 19 '18 at 15:19

Unable to add entry in /etc/group

1 Answers1