In article <20060411212738.GC21922@sta.duo>,
George Georgalis <george@galis.org> wrote:
>Can anyone point me to documentation (or source) regarding
>passwords in the /etc/group file. I'm most interested in a
>standard on what's expected there and how/when it might be used.
>eg, what might be the consequence of a null passwd field in the
>group file?
>
>     The passwd field is an optional encrypted password.  This
>     field is rarely used and an asterisk is normally placed in it
>     rather than leaving it blank.
>
>That, from group(5) is the *only* mention I can find.

Passwords in groups were checked by newgrp, which changed the primary
effective and real group of a new forked shell to be the group specified
on the command line.

http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/newgrp.html

NetBSD does not ship with a newgrp command, although older versions of BSD,
and FreeBSD include a copy of newgrp. You should be able to use the FreeBSD
version of newgrp on NetBSD. Eventually we should put it back too since it
is part of the SUS (although not particularly useful).

christos