wheel group management

jeremys_ppc

• May 08, 2014 13:25

Can somebody please explain to me how the wheel group is used. The documentation only state how to add or remove users. I have a user added to the wheel group. I can log in via ssh fine with this user with limited access as expected. I run su - (i've tried su, su - root, su root) and it asks me for a password. Neither my user password nor the root password work from this prompt. I know these passwords are correct as I can login to ssh with both accounts just fine. What am I doing wrong? Any help in this matter is greatly appreciated.

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  quizknows

  • May 08, 2014 19:25

  If a user is properly in the wheel group, it should be able to use 'su -' and the root password should be the one used to escalate privileges. In my case I use an unpriveleged user "sshuser" for this who can su to root. Check /etc/group to see if the user was added correctly: [root@new /home/temp]# grep wheel /etc/group wheel:x:10:root,sshuser
  

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  jeremys_ppc

  • May 08, 2014 21:58

  The user is in the wheel group as indicated. root@teal [~]# grep wheel /etc/group wheel:x:10:cpadmin
  I login as the admin via ssh successfully login as: cpadmin cpadmin@teal.mydomain.com's password: Last login: Wed May 7 16:27:53 2014 from x.x.x.x
  Yet when I su - it doesn't take the credentials. cpadmin@teal.mydomain.com [~]# su - Password: su: incorrect password
  I'm at a loss.

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  cPanelMichael

  • May 09, 2014 12:47

  Hello :) Have you made any changes to the standard /etc/ssh/sshd_config file on your system? Thank you.

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  jeremys_ppc

  • May 09, 2014 20:12

  The only modification to the sshd_config was the Port value. Nothing else was changed. Once I get the wheel group stuff working I was going to disable root login. PermitRootLogin No per the securing SSH from the following guide /http://www.webhostinghero.com/10-tips-secure-cpanel-server/

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  quizknows

  • May 09, 2014 23:14

  Out of curiosity how could sshd_config prevent an already logged in user from being able to use su? Check /var/log/secure. If I put in the wrong root PW with su I get: May 9 19:13:50 new su: pam_unix(su-l:auth): authentication failure; logname=sshuser uid=32014 euid=0 tty=pts/0 ruser=sshuser rhost= user=root When I use the right password: May 9 19:13:56 new su: pam_unix(su-l:session): session opened for user root by sshuser(uid=32014)

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