Edit user groups

[Steve Bertrand]

Akenner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm using FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE and I have multiple user accounts set up.
> I made about 4 for myself to use and do various testing with, and made
> some for my Wife as well because She knows UNIX better than I do anyway
> heh.
> 
> Anyway, one of the things I forgot about, was that FreeBSD by default
> doesn't allow just anyone to use su.
> 
> I come from mainly using Linux, where you can log in and then whenever
> you need to open a root xterm or even a root shell, you just type the
> password and go. I looked up how to do this but most of my results came
> back with setting up user accounts, and other things. I did add another
> user that was in the wheel group so I could do it, but I'd really like
> to be able to add my main user account to the wheel group so I can su
> from this one instead of doing su otheruser and then su again to root.
> 
> I found while searching for this something that MIGHT be what I'm
> looking for, but after reading it over, it seems I'd have to read
> through the whole man page first and then, it could be bad if I mistype
> something, or I could even screw up an account, which I can't risk.
> 
> Is there an exact way to take a user account on my system, and add it to
> the wheel group?

Yes.

# ee /etc/group

...and add your username to the list of users after the wheel group. For
instance, by default, the entry will appear as such:

wheel:*:0:root

...and if my username is steve, you will append the line like this:

wheel:*:0:root,steve

...then hit ESC, then ENTER twice.

Steve