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rentonj7
n00b
Joined: 18 Mar 2004
Posts: 48
Location: Stroudsburg, Pa
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 Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 4:10 pm Post subject: group descriptions |
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Does anyone know a good source that describes the different groups in linux (ie. wheel,root,users,etc.) Some of them seem fairly obvious to me, but I want to understand it more. I have not been able to find anything in the FAQ or by searching the forums (am I missing something obvious?)
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adaptr
Watchman
Joined: 06 Oct 2002
Posts: 6730
Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands
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| Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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You probably are - the names of these groups are partly Unix lore, and partly quite common knowledge.
Do a Google for this and you should come across plenty of histories.
Or try a how-to or the rute users guide or something - ISTR I found quite an elaborate description a while back on one of the larger linux.blahsomething sites that sprout like shrooms these days...
Let me search for a bit and I'm sure I can link you to it.
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rentonj7
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Joined: 18 Mar 2004
Posts: 48
Location: Stroudsburg, Pa
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| Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| thanks adaptr, i've been able to find some individual descriptions, but nothing comprehensive just yet. |
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adaptr
Watchman
Joined: 06 Oct 2002
Posts: 6730
Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands
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| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 11:12 am Post subject: |
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Well, most modern *nixen have pretty obvious group names, but some of the ones still in use date back to the earliest days of Unix.
Wheel is one example of this, as is bin.
The origins of the wheel group are mostly lost in the mists, but I believe it had something to do with the fact that the early systems needed a human controller 24/7.
The ones granted full system control were on a rotating schedule and members of the wheel group so they could take over root rights when their shift was due.
Likewise the bin group was meant for people or processes that had the right to execute binary files - not a trivial thing in the days when one mainframe ran just a single database.
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Cossins
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Joined: 21 Mar 2003
Posts: 1136
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
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| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 11:23 am Post subject: |
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I thought wheel was just a wheel like the one you use to steer a car.
- Simon
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adaptr
Watchman
Joined: 06 Oct 2002
Posts: 6730
Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands
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| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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Ha - thanks, you're right.
I looked it up in the Jargon Lexicon, and this is what it had to say:
| Quote: | wheel:
n. [from slang `big wheel' for a powerful person] A person who has an active wheel bit. "We need to find a wheel to unwedge the hung tape drives." (See wedged, sense 1.) The traditional name of security group zero in BSD (to which the major system-internal users like root belong) is `wheel'. Some vendors have expanded on this usage, modifying Unix so that only members of group `wheel' can go root.
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So there 
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