Share GnuCash files between users?

[Robert Heller]

  Dan Iseminger <diseminger at telus.net>,
  In a message on Sun, 11 Jul 2004 08:30:43 -0700, wrote :

DI> 
DI> Hi,
DI> 
DI> Is it possible with the latest version of GnuCash to share data between 
DI> users?  e.g.  My wife and I have our own logins in Linux, but we hold most 
DI> bank accounts in common.  Can we log in as ourselves and access the same data?

This is all SOP Linux file system protection issues.

1) Edit your /etc/group file.  Add a line like:

family_accounts::9000:user1,user2

Replace 'user1' and 'user2' with you and your wife's user (login)
names.  There is nothing 'sacred' about either the group name
(family_accounts) or GID (9000).  Pick an otherwise unused GID (should
be larger than 300 to get it above the range of system GIDs) and a
meaningful group name.

Then create a shared location:

mkdir /home/family_accounts
chown user1.family_accounts /home/family_accounts
chmod g+rws /home/family_accounts

(change user1 to your or your wife's user name.)

Then:

mv <current-path-to-gnucash-files>/<gnucash-file>*{xac,log} /home/family_accounts/

(Should not need this, but won't hurt:
chgrp family_accounts /home/family_accounts/*
)

Now your or your wife can just fire up gnucash:

gnucash /home/family_accounts/<gnucash-file>

(If you want, you can edit your desktop icon or shortcut to include the
file path.)

Note: gnucash will likely complain if you *both* try to use the same
file at the same time, but presumably you know this -- presumably you
are using a shared desktop machine and only one of you is logged in at
any given moment, so this should be a non issue.  If you have separate
computers and are sharing a file server, this is a potential issue
(which might vanish with GnuCash 2.x with its SQL/DB backend).

DI> 
DI> Thanks,
DI> 
DI> Dan
DI> _______________________________________________
DI> gnucash-user mailing list
DI> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
DI> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
DI> 
DI>          

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