Management groups are manipulated with the group command. This command has four variants:

group -add	Add a new management group
group -delete	Delete a management group
group -list	List one or more management groups and any subgroups
group -modify	Modify an existing management group

It is important to note that use of management groups is not required by the popstore. Moreover, when you place an account into a management group, that group is automatically created if it was not already defined. As such, you only need to use the group command to establish group-subgroup relationships and to delete groups which are no longer being used. Use the group -add command to add a new management group. If the group already exists, then an error will ensue and the existing group left unchanged. In that case, use the group -modify command to modify the existing group. To add the management groups class_97, class_98, class_99, and class_00 use the commands

popstore> group -add class_97 popstore> group -add class_98 popstore> group -add class_99 popstore> group -add class_00

To then make a new group named students containing these four groups, issue the command

popstore> group -add students class_97,class_98,class_99,class_00

The results can then be listed with the group -list command

popstore> group -list students Group name: Subgroups contained within -------------------------------------------- students: class_97, class_98, class_99, class_00 class_97: class_98: class_99: class_00: popstore>

After the Class of 2010 has graduated and left and the Class of 2014 arrives, the class_10 group can be removed, the class_14 group added, and the students group modified as follows

popstore> group -add class_14 popstore> group -modify students class_11,class_12,class_13,class_14 popstore> group -delete class_10 popstore> group -list students Group name: Subgroups contained within -------------------------------------------- students: class_11, class_12, class_13, class_14 class_11: class_12: class_13: class_14: popstore>

Note that the group -delete command deletes just the specified group. It will recursively delete the subgroups contained within the specified group only when -recur is specified. Also, it does not delete the accounts contained within the group; to do that, use the delete -group=group_name * command; e.g.,

popstore> delete -group=class_97 -return -log -noconfirm *

It is also important to note that a group can contain only a limited number of subgroups as immediate subgroups. Those subgroups can, of course, contain other subgroups. The limit on the number of immediate subgroups of a given group is controlled by the length in bytes of the names of each of those immediate subgroups. If there are to be N immediate subgroups and their combined name lengths are L, then N+L must be less than 236. If a group needs to contain more subgroups than allowed by that limit, nest its definition an extra level. For example,

popstore> group -add blah_x blah_01,blah_02,blah_03,...,blah_29 popstore> group -add blah_y blah_30,blah_33,blah_34,...,blah_52 popstore> group -add blah blah_x,blah_y

In the above example, the names blah_01, ..., blah_52 are collectively too long to be contained as immediate subgroups of a given group. Therefore they are split between the two groups blah_x and blah_y. Those two groups are then made subgroups of blah. Consequently, the group blah contains the all of the groups blah_01, ..., blah_52 as subgroups despite the length limitation.