Question

Adding a user to the root group

Asked by: prasanna_senanayake

If I add a particular user to "root" group will that user have root previleges?

If not what are the previleges that user will have?

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Asked On
2003-03-04 at 20:56:57ID20538822
Tags

root

,

group

,

user

,

adding

Topic

Unix Network Security

Participating Experts
4
Points
50
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: jimbbPosted on 2003-03-04 at 23:02:38ID: 8069955

No, he won't have root privs; but what privs he _does_ gain are really system dependent.

For instance, some systems will allow you to run 'su' only if you're in group root (they still need to enter the root password), other users are unable to execute the binary.

Most systems seem to just grant you additional read permissions on some files/devices, and in some cases, write permissions.

As always, don't do it unless you really need to.  If you're thinking about doing it then I imagine you have some specific goal in mind?

 

by: liddlerPosted on 2003-03-05 at 04:08:52ID: 8071074

To allow a non-root user the ability to run some or all commands that are currently only allowed for root, install and configure sudo for the commands you want.

 

by: DracoXPosted on 2003-03-20 at 14:38:22ID: 8177373

Or if you just wanna be ubercareless, just change their UID to 0

 

by: arhumanPosted on 2003-03-26 at 01:30:12ID: 8209042

If the user is in the group 'root' he will have all accesses granted by GROUP permission in the file system for files owned by the root group:

i.e. he will be able to read a file with those perm

-rw-r----- 1 root root thefile

the important part is the middle of the perms :

r-- for the GROUP

So if you want to see all file accessible in a way by someone in group 'root' :

find / -group root | xargs ls -l

and look at the permissions (group part)

Now to commplete others answers :

On some systems (BSD among others) there is a special 'root/admin'  group  called 'wheel' that you must belong to, before executing some commands like 'su'

The 'sudo' command is indeed, to my mind, the best solution
to allow non root users to execute commands with root rights (just take care to use visudo to configure, instead of editing /etc/sudoers.conf, on most systems it's a common pitfall)

 

by: liddlerPosted on 2004-02-03 at 11:23:02ID: 10264127

No comment has been added lately, so it's time to clean up this TA.
I will leave a recommendation in the Cleanup topic area that this question is:

Answered by jimbb

Please leave any comments here within the next seven days.

PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT THIS COMMENT AS AN ANSWER!

liddler
EE Cleanup Volunteer

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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