What are the Powers of the Wheel User?

T

Terry Mester

There is no clear information in the Manual about the powers of the Wheel User. Other than the ability to execute the ‘su’ Command for logging in as Superuser without logging out, I can’t detect any special powers. Are there any?

Additionally, why does the ‘adduser’ Command in V11.3 no longer ask if a new user is to be a Wheel Group Member? As an advanced computer user I was able to figure out that by selecting Group 0 the User will become a Wheel Member. However, the average computer user coming to BSD would not be able to figure this out, and wouldn’t understand the benefits of being a Wheel User. The Manual needs to be updated to explain the need for home computer administrators to make their account a Wheel User.
 
That user doesn't exist though; wheel is a group, not a user. And that group is just an average group just like the rest. The only difference between wheel and the rest is that several system files are owned by it and that several system processes use it (for example: by default the su command only allows you to become root if you're a member of the wheel group, see also /etc/pam.d/su).

But it doesn't have any special powers or something. The only user which does is UID 0, aka root. And optionally toor which is also sometimes being used.
 
Terry Mester said:
Additionally, why does the ‘adduser’ Command in V11.3 no longer ask if a new user is to be a Wheel Group Member?
Click to expand...
It never did. Not by default any way. Run adduser -C to change the defaults.
Code: 
     -C      Create new configuration file and exit.  This option is mutually
             exclusive with the -f option.
From adduser(8).
 
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