How to find what group a given user has on Linux?

We know that we can print all the users that are present on Linux with the help of the Linux utility command known as compgen.

The compgen command is a Linux utility command that is used to list all the commands that can be executed in a Linux terminal, and when used with a -u flag we can simply print all the users present on Linux.

Consider the command shown below as reference −

compgen -u

Output

root
daemon
bin
sys
sync
games
man
lp
mail
news
uucp
proxy
www-data
backup
.
.
.

Now if we want to print the total groups that are present on our Linux operating system, we can either make use of the groups command.

The groups command is used to print all the groups that are present on the Linux kernel.

Syntax

groups [options]

Usually the options in the above command are replaced by a particular user, for whom we want to check how many groups are present.

Let’s consider a few examples of the group's command.

Command

groups

Output

sh-3.2# groups

wheel daemon kmem sys tty operator procview procmod everyone staff certusers
localaccounts admin com.apple.sharepoint.group.1 _appstore _lpadmin
_lpoperator _developer _analyticsusers com.apple.access_ftp
com.apple.access_screensharing com.apple.access_ssh
com.apple.access_remote_ae

If you want to check groups of a particular user then run the below command.

Command

groups immukul

Output

sh-3.2# groups immukul

staff everyone localaccounts _appserverusr admin _appserveradm _lpadmin
com.apple.sharepoint.group.1 _appstore _lpoperator _developer _analyticsusers
com.apple.access_ftp com.apple.access_screensharing com.apple.access_ssh
com.apple.access_remote_ae

Mukul Latiyan

Updated on: 29-Jul-2021

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