Where does umask get set at system startup? Mine seems to have changed to 0002 recently

[Chris Green]

On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 10:52:34AM +0200, Tom H wrote:
> > I've not changed them but it seems my umask is set by
> > /etc/login.defs and the additional "USERGROUPS_ENAB yes". My userid
> > *is* the same as the groupid so umask gets set to 0002.
> 
> I'm sorry. I was logged in as "root" when I checked the umask. When
> I'm logged in as "th", the umask is "002". So "pam_umask" does take
> "USERGROUPS_ENAB" into account.
> 
> 
> > I'm not at all convinced that this is really a 'good thing' but it
> > does at least seem to explain why my umask is now 0002 rather than
> > 0022.
> 
> "002" means that the group has the same perms as the user for UPG.
> Given that the UPG group's only member is the user, it's mostly a
> cosmetic change.
> 
Yes, but this (now standard) configuration of every user having a
unique group ID as well does make groups pretty useless.  Admittedly
most Linux systems are probably single user so it makes no odds really.

-- 
Chris Green