Subject: Re: wheel vs root (newby question?)
To: None <port-mac68k@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Josh Huber <josh@ronin.com>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 01/07/1996 20:11:48
> After installing NetBSD I found all the files owned by 'wheel', which is
> not in the password file. As superuser (booted up single user) I had no way
> of changing this, though. I consulted the FAQ's I could find, to no avail.

root is the SUperuser, while wheel is the group of anyone you want to be 
able to su(substitute user) to root.  root is in the group wheel.  to 
look at it, check out the file /etc/group(bsdi 2.0).  By adding someone 
to the group wheel you give them permission to su to root, which means 
don't add just anyone to this group.  If you need to change the 
owner/group of a file use the chown command like so:
chown user.group testfile, or, for a more real example:
chown root.wheel /etc/passwd

a ls -l should tell you should look like this:
...
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root  wheel   1234 Sep 8 09:55 passwd
...

It _should_ show the owner, and the group right after that.

If I'm wrong, that mau be because I've never actually used 
NetBSD...everything I've said is based on knowledge of BSDI 2.0, so if 
anyone has any corections, please do so.

Josh