Each line in the file consists of a netgroup name followed by a list of the members of the netgroup. Each member can be either the name of another netgroup or a specification of a tuple as follows:
(host, user, domain)
where the
host,
user,
and
domain
are character string names for the corresponding component.
Any of the comma separated fields may be empty to specify a
``wildcard''
value
or may consist of the string
``-
''
to specify
``no valid value''.
The members of the list may be separated by whitespace;
the
``\''
character may be used at the end of a line to specify
line continuation.
The functions specified in
getnetgrent(3)
should normally be used to access the
netgroup
database.
If `files' is specified for the `netgroup' database in nsswitch.conf(5), (or no `netgroup' entry is specified), then these functions operate on the db(3) version of the netgroup (netgroup.db) file which can be generated using netgroup_mkdb(8). If `nis' is specified then the NIS maps `netgroup', `netgroup.byhost', and `netgroup.byuser' are used.
Lines that begin with a # are treated as comments.
/etc/netgroup.db