We've got quite a strange problem on our hands here. We are running an HP 9000/800 B.11.00.
I've just created a new group in /etc/group which i called, let's say newgroup . Then I added 4 users to the group, namely user1, user2, user3, user4 . The command grpchk shows no strange things (the maximum one of those users is used in other groups is 14 times, the group newgroup is the 40th group I've created in /etc/group)
Then I created a new directory on the server called updir . In that directory I've created an other directory called lowdir . Then I gave the following commands:
chown -R user1:newgroup /updir
chmod -R 770 /updir
Now when checking the permissions for the 2 dirs they give the exact same result (drwxrwxrwx & user1:newgroup). All seems fine...
But the problem is that only user1 can enter /updir and the /updir/downdir.
User2, user3 and user4 can only enter /updir, NOT the /updir/downdir... very strang.
That doesn't seem fine at all. If you did a chmod 770, you should see "drwxrwx---". My guess is that you have the first directory at 777 and the second at 770 somehow. After you add a user to a group, the user must log out and back in to get the new group because groups are set at login time. Was that done?
indeed I see drwxrwx--- for the two directories. It is set to 770 for both directories.
The strang thing is that I'm included in the group, I'm also the owner of the two directories, but when I change the owner to someone else who is also included in the same group and the log out and back in I'm not able anymore to create a file or other directory under the first one (updir) and I can't even get access to the second one (downdir)... Even with the permissions set to 770 (is't it that the second 7 is full access for everyone who is member of the same group?!?!)
I have found the problem thanks to your help! The whole time I was testing with my useraccount which I hadn't checked for number of groups I was in. When I used the command groups I saw that newgroup wasn't listed and I started counting the other ones (20 in total) :o
I would like to apologize for my stupid mistake, thank you very much for your time!
