Re: GNU su and the wheel group

[telford]

In gnu.misc.discuss Tristan Miller <psychonaut@nothingisreal.com> wrote:

>> Under the usual `su' mechanism, once someone learns the root password who
>> sympathizes with the ordinary users, he or she can tell the rest.  The
>> "wheel group" feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the
>> power of the rulers.

> I don't really understand this argument

Neither does anyone else, you can get the same wheel group protection
from the gnu version of su like so:

[root]# chgrp wheel /bin/su
[root]# chmod o-rwx /bin/su
[root]# ls -l /bin/su
-rwsr-x---    1 root     wheel       94625 Oct 12  2003 /bin/su

Now only members of the wheel group can run su... how exciting!

While Stallman has a lot of good ideas and usually makes sensible
political decisions, there are occasions where reality and Stallman
don't make contact. If only I had an infallible hero to put my
faith in, how much easier would life be then?

        - Tel