How to add to group when name has a space?

I had a similar problem with group name "domain users" coming from AD. For chown I was able to use group id number instead of group name. For example:

sudo chown -R user1:118600513 /home/user1

where 118600513 is the id for a group "domain users".

If using sssd to do this AD integration and reference this group and its group membership, sssd has a cute directive in sssd.conf:

override_space = -

This affects the display output only.  So "AD Group" now shows up as ad-group and "AD User" would show up as ad-user.  Then it's trivial to do useradd, write sudoers rules, etc.  Because those AD groups and users no longer have a space in them.

You can use \ to escape the space char. example:domain\ users

This is not quite a direct answer, but if reindeers is an AD group, then it would seem that user foo bars would need to be added to that group on the domain controller, so that other domain members will be able to recognize foo bars as a member of the group.

But generally, no special handling is necessary for spaces in user or group names, other than double-quoting.

# finger "test user"
Login: test user                Name: Test User
Directory: /nonexistent         Shell: /usr/sbin/nologin
No Mail.
No Plan.
# id "test user"
uid=99563(test user) gid=99563(test user) groups=99563(test user),9999(test group)
# su -m "test user"
$ id
uid=99563(test user) gid=99563(test user) groups=99563(test user),9999(test group)
$ whoami
test user
$ touch /tmp/test; ls -l /tmp/test; 
-rw-r--r--  1 test user  wheel  0 Nov 30 15:00 /tmp/test
$ chgrp "test group" /tmp/test; ls -l /tmp/test
-rw-r--r--  1 test user  test group  0 Nov 30 15:00 /tmp/test
$ find /tmp -group "test group" -ls
 38023    1 -rw-r--r--   1 test user   test group      0 Nov 30 15:00 /tmp/test

Update: It was pointed to me that the question is about username having space, not group name... But since Google points this answer for "how to add user to a group that has space in name" (and frankly I understood it also this way), I'll still leave this snipped.

1. add a group name without space: groupadd mybestfriends
2. add users to it: usermod -a -G mybestfriends friend1
3. edit /etc/group and add spaces: nano /etc/group change line: mybestfriends:x:1003:friend1 to: my best friends:x:1003:friend1
4. manipulate group with its GID : usermod -a -G 1003 friend2

For now I didn't see no side effects, but YMMV.

Don't forget sudo where applicable.

I spent an entire day searching the same topic. Here's what I found and tested on Debian 9 + Samba AD DC 4.5.12:

In order to set sharing folder permission, a somewhat local UNIX group or user must be present.

Option 1: Create Group with GID

I failed to map the GID after creation by net groupmap, but was able to map them at the time of creation by:

groupadd localgroupnamewithoutspace
cat /etc/group
samba-tool group add "Group name with space" --nis-domain=mydomain --gid-number=corresponding gid we just saw in /etc/group
chgrp localgroupnamewithoutspace /path/of/share
chmod 0770 /path/of/share

Option 2: Look up GID of AD group

UNIX groups don't allow space, so set the group of the directory to its GID; it will work.

However, when doing ls -al, it will show the GID number not the AD group or UNIX group name. This could potentially be a problem if multiple groups are nested and assigned in the same large sharing parent directory.

wbinfo --name-to-sid "AD group name with space"
wbinfo --sid-to-gid "Copy from the output above"

It should look like this, and you only need this part S-1-5-21-53980404-2501955692-3283166571-512 then use the GID number when setting permission by chgrp, chmod.

Noted, The above only takes care of AD group and Unix group mapping, the actual ACL and group member permission still requires having proper SeDiskOperatorPrivilege setup, and then configured through Windows Client with account has SeDiskOperatorPrivilege in File Explorer and ADUC.

I did not try this for group, but to add a space to the user info (a.k.a. GECOS info) with the usermod command, add " " (i.e., quotes with space in between):

usermod  username  -c  User" "Name

e.g.,

usermod  jsmith  -c  John" "Smith

usermod  jsmith  -c  "John Smith"

Or use single quotes ('…') instead of double quotes ("…").