Groups listed with 'id' are different

SlowCoder · 06-08-2021, 08:43 PM

I added myself (myuser) to the vboxusers group, and my /etc/groups file shows my user as a member of the vboxusers group.

Code:

vboxusers:x:135:myuser

When I execute the following as myuser:

Code:

$ id myuser
uid=1000(myuser) gid=1000(myuser) groups=1000(myuser),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),46(plugdev),114(lpadmin),134(sambashare),135(vboxusers)

$ id
uid=1000(myuser) gid=1000(myuser) groups=1000(myuser),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),46(plugdev),114(lpadmin),134(sambashare)

Why does the first show vboxusers, and the other one not?

scasey · 06-08-2021, 08:54 PM

I’m guessing that the second is because the current session doesn’t know about the change.
Couple of ways to confirm that:
1) logout and log back in
2) to preserve the current session, su myuser, enter password to login.

Rerun the id command.

Please let us (me

) know if my guess is right or not.

SlowCoder · 06-09-2021, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scasey

Please let us (me

) know if my guess is right or not.

Multi-tiered answer ...
I ran 'su myuser', and the results were updated.

I tried logging out and back into the gui, and got the original results. I had to restart the computer, after which the results were updated.

So, you were right in that it was a user context issue. But for some reason, I had to restart the pc to permanently fix.

scasey · 06-09-2021, 08:36 PM

Hmmm.
I meant log out and back into the terminal, although I suppose that logging out of the GUI would end any terminal sessions.
The su myuser worked, but of course if you exit from that, you’d be back in the shell that was “ignorant” of the change.
You don’t say how you added the user to the group, but if you did it in a subshell, or with a GUI or something like webmin, then the already-running shell wouldn’t know about the change

The only time I feel a need to reboot is following a kernel update…

GazL · 06-10-2021, 06:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SlowCoder

I tried logging out and back into the gui, and got the original results. I had to restart the computer, after which the results were updated.

That shouldn't have been necessary, but maybe it's a peculiarity of your DISPLAY MANAGER or systemd.logind or similar. On my old-school non-systemd rig using XDM, a logout/in is all that is needed for the new credentials to take effect.

ondoho · 06-11-2021, 12:35 AM

I can confirm that only a user logout/in is necessary for that to take effect.
Nota bene: a user logout (sometimes a graphical session can be terminated, bringing you back to the command line, but without logging the user out).