19. Managing group directories

autogroup module is for creating directories on demand for common group access. It can be used with Samba, for example, to dynamically create shared directories for group of people.

Note

autogroup module check for requested directory with valid groups from system group database.

Tip

autogroup can be used to create home directories as well! Provided that there exists user private group for each user. This way all group and home directories can be created at one place with one module. But no skeleton files are copied and the autogroup suboption nopriv should not be used.

autogroup configuration is same as autohome module but unlike autohome, virtual base directory can be placed anywhere and any name can be given to it. It is not dictated by system accounts.

The module autogroup can be used with Autodir using option -m. For example, -m /usr/lib/autodir/autogroup.so.

All suboptions explained in managing home directories are same for autogroup except skel, noskel as these are meaningless for autogroup module. But there are two other suboptions specific for autogroup. These are given below.

nopriv

Some Linux installations use user private groups. If directories for these groups are not to be created, then use this suboption.

nosetgid

By default setgid is set on group directories created. Use this suboption to disable this feature.