Re: [gentoo-user] su doesn't work for me.

[Mark Shields]

On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.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.mckinnon@×××××.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.