Nov 16th, 2010
Adding new User buddy to the wheel group
Adding new User buddy to the wheel group
The wheel group is a group which limits the number of people who are able to su to root. This usually consists of a group named “wheel” and a set of users that are permitted to use the utility ’su’ in order to change to root.
Many systems, especially either commercial systems or Linux systems, come without wheel groups configured and implemented. At least one Linux distribution, comes with wheel groups preconfigured but not active. However, all or nearly all BSD based systems will come with the wheel group installed and set up.
Adding new user “buddy” to the wheel group in order to allow it to gain root access, with *NO* root privileges. That means that this user will be able to log into the server, but won’t be able to perform any root tasks until the user switches to the root user.
Once you are in SSH, you have to type the below command, the user buddy should already exist.
Before proceeding, re-login to your server using the “buddy” account. At the SSH prompt, type “su” followed by the Enter key, and then enter in the root password. If you were successful, you should be at a root prompt:
To confirm that you are root, at the SSH prompt type the command whoami , which should display your root account.
