On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckin...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 00:32 on Monday 11 April 2011, Mark Shields > did opine thusly: > > > On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 10:08 AM, Alan McKinnon > <alan.mckin...@gmail.com>wrote: > > > Apparently, though unproven, at 16:28 on Sunday 10 April 2011, Dale did > > > opine > > > > > > thusly: > > > > > That was it! I've now got su-ability from that normal user. > > > > > > > > > > Funny, though, on my (very) old Debian system I don't seem to have > a > > > > > wheel. > > > > > > > > > > Thanks. > > > > > > > > > >> Best regards, > > > > >> Yann > > > > > > > > I think that is a Gentoo thing. It does add some security if you > don't > > > > want a user, like maybe some little kid, getting root access for any > > > > reason. > > > > > > No, it's pretty standard across Unix. > > > > > > The BSD's for example have had it since forever - members of the wheel > > > group > > > being allowed to sudo anything only came along much later. > > > > > > Leaving it *out* is a Linux-distro thing, probably from the usual usage > > > case > > > for Linux for many years - a server on the web that actually only had > one > > > user > > > even though it was capable of being fully multi-user. The concept of > > > wheel for > > > su is pretty redundant in that case. > > > > > > > > > -- > > > alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com > > > > Wheel has nothing to do with su; it has everything to do with sudo, but > > only if /etc/sudoers is edited to allow the Wheel group sudo access. Su > > is for changing to a different user, or running a command as another > user; > > doing either requires the password of that user; sudo, on the other hand, > > only requires your password, if you're in the wheel group and the wheel > > group is given full sudo access, and the sudo access for wheel requires > > your password. > > > > Some examples, assuming your user (the one you're logged in as) is in > wheel > > and requires a password for sudo access (see: visudo): > > > > sudo su <--- escalates you to root user with your own password. This is > > running "su" with "sudo". > > su user <--- switches to "user" with their password required to be > entered > > sudo su user < -- switch to "user" with your password required to be > > entered sudo <command> <-- runs command as root > > sudo -u user <command> <--- runs command as "user" > > sudo su - user <--- escalates you to "user" and cd's to their home > > directory > > > > Please read the man pages for sudo and su for more info. > > Mark, > > You know better than that. Re-read my post, I said that *Unix*, most > especially the BSDs, have had a concept of wheel for, well, since almost > when > Unix started. sudo came much later and for sudo, wheel is naturally a very > useful pre-existing thing to use. > > If Linux distros, maintainers or the GNU folk chose to not implement wheel > membership as a prerequisite for su, then that's fine. They can do what > they > want with their stuff but it doesn't change the fact that other operating > systems can, and do, do it differently. > > I have read man su and man sudo. Many times. I see that the ones I have are > very Linux-centric. > > Google "wheel su" for more info, keeping in mind that Linux != Unix > > > > > -- > alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com > > That response wasn't really meant for you, your reply just happened to be the one I clicked reply on.
