Lost some of account rights

[Patton Echols]

On 04/28/2007 11:48 AM, OOzy Pal wrote:
> I was trying to add me login name to group www-data so I did
>
> usermod -g www-data hab
> usermod -G www-data hab
>
> now, I lost my system menu. When I click on System I see only limited
> items. How can I re-gain my right.
>
>   
FWIW, I'm pretty much a noob, but reading some man pages . . .:

It looks like the problem is the use of the "-G" option.  The man page 
says that, if you don't list all your existing groups, then "usermod -G" 
will remove the user from any groups not listed.  So to add yourself 
back, you need to list all of the groups you should belong to. 

Here is the section from man usermod
"
   -G, --groups GROUP1[,GROUP2,...[,GROUPN]]]
          A list of supplementary groups which the user is also a member of.
          Each group is separated from the next by a comma, with no
          intervening whitespace. The groups are subject to the same
          restrictions as the group given with the -g option. If the user is
          currently a member of a group which is not listed, the user 
will be
          removed from the group. This behaviour can be changed via -a 
option,
          which appends user to the current supplementary group list.

"

And here is the output on my system of "grep patton /etc/group"

adm:x:4:patton
dialout:x:20:cupsys,patton
cdrom:x:24:haldaemon,patton
floppy:x:25:haldaemon,patton
audio:x:29:patton
dip:x:30:patton
video:x:44:patton
plugdev:x:46:haldaemon,patton
lpadmin:x:109:patton
scanner:x:111:cupsys,hplip,patton
patton:x:1000:
admin:x:114:patton

If my system is typical, then you would want to do:

usermod -G 
adm,dialout,cdrom,floppy,audio,dip,video,plugdev,lpadmin,scanner,hab,admin

WARNING:  man usermod also says that the groups must exist.  Check to be 
sure before you do this.

Better yet, see if someone who really knows can give you a better answer.

GL