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On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 10:08 AM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>wrote: |
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> Apparently, though unproven, at 16:28 on Sunday 10 April 2011, Dale did |
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> opine |
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> thusly: |
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> |
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> > > That was it! I've now got su-ability from that normal user. |
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> > > |
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> > > Funny, though, on my (very) old Debian system I don't seem to have a |
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> > > wheel. |
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> > > |
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> > > Thanks. |
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> > > |
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> > >> Best regards, |
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> > >> Yann |
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> > |
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> > I think that is a Gentoo thing. It does add some security if you don't |
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> > want a user, like maybe some little kid, getting root access for any |
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> > reason. |
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> |
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> No, it's pretty standard across Unix. |
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> |
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> The BSD's for example have had it since forever - members of the wheel |
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> group |
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> being allowed to sudo anything only came along much later. |
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> |
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> Leaving it *out* is a Linux-distro thing, probably from the usual usage |
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> case |
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> for Linux for many years - a server on the web that actually only had one |
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> user |
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> even though it was capable of being fully multi-user. The concept of wheel |
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> for |
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> su is pretty redundant in that case. |
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> |
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> |
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> -- |
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> alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com |
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> |
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> |
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Wheel has nothing to do with su; it has everything to do with sudo, but only |
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if /etc/sudoers is edited to allow the Wheel group sudo access. Su is for |
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changing to a different user, or running a command as another user; doing |
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either requires the password of that user; sudo, on the other hand, only |
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requires your password, if you're in the wheel group and the wheel group is |
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given full sudo access, and the sudo access for wheel requires your |
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password. |
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Some examples, assuming your user (the one you're logged in as) is in wheel |
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and requires a password for sudo access (see: visudo): |
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|
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sudo su <--- escalates you to root user with your own password. This is |
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running "su" with "sudo". |
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su user <--- switches to "user" with their password required to be entered |
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sudo su user < -- switch to "user" with your password required to be entered |
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sudo <command> <-- runs command as root |
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sudo -u user <command> <--- runs command as "user" |
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sudo su - user <--- escalates you to "user" and cd's to their home directory |
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|
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Please read the man pages for sudo and su for more info. |
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