> I would do it....
> I see no reason to enforce a limit - if you allow it to be 'large'
> the code has to treat it as infinite.  If the limit were, say, 256
> then someone who added a 257th group would only have to remember
> to up the limit.  Since only root can do anything that sets
> this up it doesn't really matter.
> (actually a limit might be set - but one which is large enough that
> reporting -1 would be correct anyway)

I think I will take a gander at how FreeBSD does this, IIRC
they have a pretty strong standards drive going on over there.

> > So, after further review, it looks like the PR has
> > morphed into 2 issues really:
> > 
> > 1) bad error reporting
> > 
> > 2) using sysconf for posix compliance
> 
> 3) bad coding - the libutil routine that does getgrouplist/intgroups
>    (forgotten its name) doesn't obey its man page and passes invalid
>    data to the kernel.

heh, okay, i didnt want to say that :)
 
> 4) enhancing the kernel to support indefinite numbers of groups

so, in this case, would we want to be able to modify it via
sysctl and use sysconf for reporting?

> > recall our statement of "posix within reason".
> 
> Yes - keeps the code porting punters happy.

:)

	j