Permissions: Difference between revisions

sudo now replaces the admin group in ubuntu, aligning it with debian
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[[File:Bigwheel.jpg|400px|Are you a big wheel?]]
[[File:Bigwheel.jpg|400px|Are you a big wheel?]]


(You'll find wheel <ref>http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/</ref> in RedHat, FreeBSD and other Unixes.  In Ubuntu, the admin group is called 'admin', and anyone can use sudo.)   
(You'll find wheel <ref>http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/</ref> in RedHat, FreeBSD and other Unixes.  In Ubuntu, the admin group is called 'sudo', and anyone can use the sudo service.)   


Administrative users will have the permission to execute 'super user do' (sudo) commands.  This privilege is granted by adding the user to the 'wheel' group.  By granting privileges, it's easier to use system accounting to see who is doing what.  Much better than handing out the root password to multiple persons.  If you're in the wheel group, then you can issue <code>sudo</code> commands without a password.  This is implemented on new machine setups by issuing the <code>visudo</code> command and uncommenting the line for <code>%wheel NOPASSWD</code>.  Of course, you'll also need to run <code>usermod -a -G wheel $USER</code> to add the $USER to the wheel group.
Administrative users will have the permission to execute 'super user do' (sudo) commands.  This privilege is granted by adding the user to the 'wheel' group.  By granting privileges, it's easier to use system accounting to see who is doing what.  Much better than handing out the root password to multiple persons.  If you're in the wheel group, then you can issue <code>sudo</code> commands without a password.  This is implemented on new machine setups by issuing the <code>visudo</code> command and uncommenting the line for <code>%wheel NOPASSWD</code>.  Of course, you'll also need to run <code>usermod -a -G wheel $USER</code> to add the $USER to the wheel group.