From: Rocky Bernstein <redmine@...>
Date: 2010-09-08T00:47:09+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:32106] [Ruby 1.9-Bug#3683] getgrnam on computer with NIS group (+)?

Issue #3683 has been updated by Rocky Bernstein.


I ran the following program to show group information in C on the computer where the test was failing:


#include <sys/types.h>
#include <grp.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <errno.h>
int main(int argc, const char *argv[]) 
{
    struct group *grp;
    errno = 0;
    while (grp = getgrent()) {
	printf("name: %s, passwd: %s, errno %d\n", grp->gr_name, grp->gr_passwd, errno);
	errno = 0;
    }
}


The output shows:

name: root, passwd: x, errno 0
...
name: snmp, passwd: x, errno 0
name: +, passwd:  , errno 0

My /etc/group file 

root:x:0:
...
snmp:x:139:
+:::

So getgrent() reports "+" as a group name; "+" is at the end of the /etc/group file. However it isn't the name of a group. Instead, "+" indicates including NIS groups. See for example section 3. http://lyre.mit.edu/~powell/debian-howto/nis.html

So getgrnam() returns 0 and errno shows no indication of an error (that is, errno is 0).






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