Wheel Groups in Linux

Nilesh Katuwal Feb 22, 2022
  1. the Fundamental Goal of Groups in Linux
  2. the Group Work in Linux
  3. the Sudoers Wheel in Linux
  4. the Users and Groups in Linux
  5. Type groupadd to Create Group in Linux
  6. Significance of Wheel Group in Linux
Wheel Groups in Linux

This article will learn about the significance of wheel groups in Linux.

On some Unix systems, the wheel group is a special user group that controls access to the su command, which allows a user to clone another user, i.e., superuser.

the Fundamental Goal of Groups in Linux

A group in Linux is a gathering of users. The fundamental goal of groups is to specify a set of privileges for a certain resource.

That may be shared across the users inside the group, such as read, write, or execute access. Taking advantage of rights granted by an existing group, users can be added to it.

the Group Work in Linux

A user owns every process, e.g., like Thanos user when a process attempts to read a file held by a group.

Linux A determines whether the user Thanos has access to the file and B determines which groups Thanos belongs to and whether any of those groups own and can access the file.

the Sudoers Wheel in Linux

When a user’s wheel group membership grants them complete sudo root access, it’s usually set up like this in the /etc/sudoers file: %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL.

That means Any member of the group wheel on any host can sudo to any user account and run any command.

the Users and Groups in Linux

On Linux systems, user groups are quite significant. They make it simple for a small group of users to share files.

System admins can also manage user privileges more effectively by allocating privileges to groups rather than individual users.

Type groupadd to Create Group in Linux

To create a new group, type groupadd followed by the new group’s name. The command updates the /etc/group and /etc/gshadow files to include the new group.

After the group has been created, you can add users to it.

Significance of Wheel Group in Linux

After the TENEX operating system launch, which was later distributed under TOPS-20 in the 1960s and early 1970s, the term wheel was first applied to computer user privilege levels.

The name comes from the slang phrase huge wheel, which refers to someone with a lot of power or influence.