How to update groups w/o re-logging in?

I have been added to a new group by our sysadmin, but my *existing*
shell sessions don't recognize it (new sessions do).  Is there a
way to tell my *existing* shell sessions about the new group, so
that, e.g., it shows in the output of the "groups" command?

Thanks!

kj

-- 
NOTE: In my address everything before the first period is backwards;
and the last period, and everything after it, should be discarded.

[...]

No, only super-users can add supplementary groups do an existing
process, the only thing you can do to add groups to one process
is exec a setuid command that will add those new groups to the
process, and then switch back to your user id and exec a new
shell.  The process id will be preserved but not the shell (a
new one will be started).

That's what login does. So, "exec login" will do what you want
but will ask your login/passwd again and will start a new shell.

See man setgroups.

Note that /etc/group is not special in anyway as far as the
operating system is concerned. It's just login commands that use
it to initialise the list of groups of the login process
(shell) (and applications such as ls that use it to translate
group ids to names).

The operating system is only concerned with user and group ids
of processes and files.

-- 
Stephane

   In each shell session, do:

su - $USER

-- 
    Chris F.A. Johnson                     < http://www.**--****.com/ >
    ==================================================================
    Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, 2005, Apress
    < http://www.**--****.com/ ~chris/books/cfaj/ssr.html>

In article <dg453b$b65$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM >,



Try "newgrp".  It will start a new shell, but the shell will be part of the
same shell session.

	John
-- 
John DuBois   XXXX@XXXXX.COM   KC6QKZ/AE   http://www.**--****.com/ ~spcecdt/

That would be a new shell. It would be in the same terminal window, but it
would still be a new shell. The question is about the _existing_ shell. 

As far as I know, There is no way for a user to add a group to an existing
shell. 
-- 

Stephane Chazelas < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > writes:
[...]

It's not entirely clear (to me) what is and is not part of the
"operating system".  I think the point is that the *kernel* is only
concerned with user and group ids of processes and files.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith)  XXXX@XXXXX.COM   < http://www.**--****.com/ ~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center             <*>  < http://www.**--****.com/ ~kst>
We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this.

It seems you will have to write a kernel module to do it - if you are
running a kernel that you can modify. If you do, you may even be able
load the new module without rebooting your kernel or terminating your
existing shells. :)

I am not aware of any system call to add groups to a running process
other than the process doing the call. So I think that even the
root user cannot add groups to a random running process.

-Enrique

2005-09-12, 19:27(+00), Keith Thompson:

You're right, the term was not easy to choose. I was considering
OS as opposed to applications. It's only the applications (some
of which may be considered as part of the OS in your definition
of OS) and the libc for instance that deal with /etc/group,
/etc/passwd,shadow... and user/group *names*, not the OS (OS
kernel in your definition).

-- 
Sthane