# Creating groups
<a name="security-authorization-file-create-group"></a>

You can use `[groups]` section of the permissions file to define user groups for users that have similar use cases or permissions requirements. Groups can be assigned specific permissions. Permissions assigned to a group apply to all of the users that are included in the group.

To create groups in your permissions file, you must first add the groups section heading to the file.

```
[groups]
```

You can then create your groups under the section heading. To create a group, provide the group name, and then specify the group members in a comma-separated list. Group members can be individual users, other groups, and operating system user groups.

```
{{group_name}}={{member_1}}, {{member_2}}, {{member_3}}
```

**To add a user to a group**  
Specify the user name.

**Note**  
You can prefix the user name with `user:`. Windows domain user names can include a domain name.

```
{{group_name}}={{user_1}}, user:{{user_2}}, {{domain_name\user_3}}
```

**To add an existing group to a group**  
Specify the group name prefixed with `group:`

```
{{group_name}}=group:{{group_1}}, group:{{group_2}}
```

**To add an operating system user group to a group (Linux Amazon DCV servers only)**  
Specify the group's name prefixed with `osgroup:`

```
{{group_name}}=osgroup:{{os_group_1}}, osgroup:{{os_group2}}
```

**Example**  
The following example adds the groups section heading and creates a group that's named `my-group`. This group includes individual users. They're named `john` and `jane`. One of them is an existing group that's named `observers`. The other is an operating system user group that's named `guests`:

```
[groups]
my-group=john, user:jane, group:observers, osgroup:guests
```