GETGROUPS(3P)

PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME
getgroups — get supplementary group IDs

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int getgroups(int gidsetsize, gid_t grouplist[]);

DESCRIPTION
The getgroups() function shall fill in the array grouplist with the current supplementary group IDs of the calling process. It is implementation-defined whether getgroups() also returns the effective group ID in the grouplist array.

The gidsetsize argument specifies the number of elements in the array grouplist. The actual number of group IDs stored in the array shall be returned. The values of array entries with indices greater than or equal to the value returned are undefined.

If gidsetsize is 0, getgroups() shall return the number of group IDs that it would otherwise return without modifying the array pointed to by grouplist.

If the effective group ID of the process is returned with the supplementary group IDs, the value returned shall always be greater than or equal to one and less than or equal to the value of {NGROUPS_MAX}+1.

RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, the number of supplementary group IDs shall be returned. A return value of -1 indicates failure and errno shall be set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
The getgroups() function shall fail if:

EINVAL
    The gidsetsize argument is non-zero and less than the number of group IDs that would have been returned.

The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

  Getting the Supplementary Group IDs of the Calling Process

The following example places the current supplementary group IDs of the calling process into the group array.

    #include <sys/types.h>
    #include <unistd.h>
    ...
    gid_t *group;
    int nogroups;
    long ngroups_max;

    ngroups_max = sysconf(_SC_NGROUPS_MAX) + 1;
    group = (gid_t *)malloc(ngroups_max *sizeof(gid_t));

    ngroups = getgroups(ngroups_max, group);

APPLICATION USAGE
None.

RATIONALE
The related function setgroups() is a privileged operation and therefore is not covered by this volume of POSIX.1-2017.

As implied by the definition of supplementary groups, the effective group ID may appear in the array returned by getgroups() or it may be returned only by getegid(). Duplication may exist, but the application needs to call getegid() to be sure of getting all of the information. Various implementation variations and administrative sequences cause the set of groups appearing in the result of getgroups() to vary in order and as to whether the effective group ID is included, even when the set of groups is the same (in the mathematical sense of ``set''). (The history of a process and its parents could affect the details of the result.)

Application developers should note that {NGROUPS_MAX} is not necessarily a constant on all implementations.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.

SEE ALSO
getegid(), setgid()

The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017, <sys_types.h>, <unistd.h>

COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .