innetgr(3)

innetgr3

Netgroup database operations

Part of getnetgrent(3).

Usage

#include <netdb.h>

int

getnetgrent(char **host, char **user, char **domain);

int

getnetgrent_r(char **host, char **user, char **domain, char *buf, size_t bufsize);

int

innetgr(const char *netgroup, const char *host, const char *user, const char *domain);

void

setnetgrent(const char *netgroup);

void

endnetgrent(void);

Library

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

Overview

These functions operate on the netgroup database file /etc/netgroup which is described in netgroup(5). The database defines a set of netgroups, each made up of one or more triples:

(host, user, domain)

that defines a combination of host, user and domain. Any of the three fields may be specified as ``wildcards'' that match any string.

The function getnetgrent() sets the three pointer arguments to the strings of the next member of the current netgroup. If any of the string pointers are NULL that field is considered a wildcard.

The functions setnetgrent() and endnetgrent() set the current netgroup and terminate the current netgroup respectively. If setnetgrent() is called with a different netgroup than the previous call, an implicit endnetgrent() is implied. The setnetgrent() function also sets the offset to the first member of the netgroup.

The function innetgr() searches for a match of all fields within the specified group. If any of the host, user, or domain arguments are NULL those fields will match any string value in the netgroup member.

Return values

The function getnetgrent() returns 0 for ``no more netgroup members'' and 1 otherwise. The function innetgr() returns 1 for a successful match and 0 otherwise. The functions setnetgrent() and endnetgrent() have no return value.

Files

/etc/netgroup

netgroup database file

Compatibility

The netgroup members have three string fields to maintain compatibility with other vendor implementations, however it is not obvious what use the domain string has within BSD.

Releases

87 releases since FreeBSD 2.0.5-RELEASE; the text changed 44 times.

  1. 2.0.5
  2. 2.1.5–2.2.5
  3. 2.2.6–3.4
  4. 3.5–3.5.1
  5. 4.0
  6. 4.1–4.3
  7. 4.4
  8. 4.5–4.7
  9. 4.8–4.11
  10. 5.0
  11. 5.1–5.5
  12. 6.0–6.3
  13. 6.4
  14. 7.0
  15. 7.1
  16. 7.2
  17. 7.3
  18. 7.4
  19. 8.0
  20. 8.1
  21. 8.2
  22. 8.3
  23. 8.4
  24. 9.0
  25. 9.1
  26. 9.2
  27. 9.3
  28. 10.0
  29. 10.1
  30. 10.2
  31. 10.3
  32. 10.4
  33. 11.0
  34. 11.1
  35. 11.2
  36. 11.3
  37. 11.4
  38. 12.0
  39. 12.1
  40. 12.2
  41. 12.3
  42. 12.4
  43. 13.0–13.2
  44. 13.3–14.5
  45. 15.0–16.0

Bugs

The function getnetgrent() returns pointers to dynamically allocated data areas that are freed when the function endnetgrent() is called.

From base 16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79 in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.