Using OMIT

If you specify OMIT and issue a passwd_export command with the -x option, then the named group will not appear in the /etc/group file produced by the passwd_export command. Subsequent to this, users will not be able to issue a newgrp command to this group on the local machine.

The ls command is likewise affected. For example, the following command accesses the group file to obtain additional information about a group:

ls -lg

If the group is omitted, no group entry will exist and no information will be available. For this reason, you should use OMIT to omit groups from file /etc/group only if your user community is very large and either of the following conditions occur:

· The group file is taking up too much space.

· Group ID-to-name mapping is too slow (during an ls -lg command, for example).