Really Dumb Question

[Tim Tonway]

>>
>> 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
>
You can also use pw for this.

To set primary:

pw usermod -g group -n user

To add a secondary group:

pw usermog -G group -n user


-Tim