From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 2 19:26:07 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5F70616A4CE for ; Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:26:07 +0000 (GMT) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (clunix.cl.msu.edu [35.9.2.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F0E4143D6E for ; Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:26:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu) Received: (from jerrymc@localhost) by clunix.cl.msu.edu (8.11.7p1+Sun/8.11.7) id iA2JPsV06192; Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:25:54 -0500 (EST) From: Jerry McAllister Message-Id: <200411021925.iA2JPsV06192@clunix.cl.msu.edu> To: dan@ferrises.com Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:25:53 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <4186DA65.9020909@ferrises.com> from "Dan Ferris" at Nov 01, 2004 05:52:53 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Really Dumb Question X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 19:26:07 -0000 > > This is probably a dumb question. > > I need to add a user that can su to root. So.... > > I add the user with adduser, invite the user into the wheel group (GID > 0) then add the user to the wheel group in /etc/group > > su still fails. What am I missing? It's go to be something really dumb. It might help to know what error you are getting. It is impossible to know what exactly you tried and what exactly you saw as the result, so it is difficult to know what to tell you. But, a comment anyway. You do not need to make the primary group be 'wheel', although I suppose you can if you like. The primary group for a user is the one they are assigned in the /etc/passwd (master.passwd) file. It is the one you give them with adduser. I would suggest making the user's primary group, whatever group you would make them for other than the 'su' consideration. Then, add them to the wheel group as one of their secondary groups by editing the /etc/group file and adding the user on to the wheel group. If, for example, the username is privuser, just add ',privuser' on to the end of the line defining the wheel group (minus the quote marks and without a space before the comma). Just edit /etc/group with vi. This way, you can move the user in to and out of the wheel group without affecting group ownership of the user's files. If you make the user's primary group to be wheel, the user's files will most likely end up with wheel for group ownership and you would have to change all that if you wanted to remove that user from the wheel group, but not delete the account. ////jerry > > Thanks for any help. > > Dan