what is an administrator?

[Tom Horsley]

In anaconda, in the create user screen, there is a checkbox
for making a user an "administrator".

Once you get past anaconda, there is no "administrator"
checkbox in any of the user configuration tools I
can find.

So what does it mean to make a user an "administrator"?
How do you go about adding that after you are way past
anaconda?

Do I add some sudoer info? Is there a group that needs
to be added to that user? What is an administrator?

[Earl A Ramirez]

Do I add some sudoer info? Is there a group that needs
to be added to that user? What is an administrator?


When a user is an administrator, it basically placed in the wheels group,
so you can add the users to that group if you wish to make them an
administrator.

[Terry Polzin]

On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 9:55 AM, Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  In anaconda, in the create user screen, there is a checkbox
>  for making a user an "administrator".
>
>  Once you get past anaconda, there is no "administrator"
>  checkbox in any of the user configuration tools I
>  can find.
>
>  So what does it mean to make a user an "administrator"?
>  How do you go about adding that after you are way past
>  anaconda?
>
>  Do I add some sudoer info? Is there a group that needs
>  to be added to that user? What is an administrator?
>
>  
In Anaconda adding a user account as an "Administrator" adds that user
to
the "wheel" group by default the wheel group is enabled wthin sudo to run
all commands with "root" privileges.  After install adding a user to the
"wheel" group will have the same effect without the need to edit
/etc/sudoers via "vi sudo" and adding the user manually.

[Tom Horsley]

So wheel group it is! Thanks for the info.

(I did find a redhat KB web page answering this
exact question, but it wanted my redhat account login
to see the answer :-).

[Ankur Sinha]

On Wed, 2017-09-27 at 10:23 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
>  So wheel group it is! Thanks for the info. 
Yeh. I double-checked that this is documented in the the docs[1]
(scroll down to Figure 26):

"The Make this user administrator check box gives the user you are
creatng administrative rights (by adding this user into the wheel
group), allowing this user to use the sudo command to perform tasks
normally only available to root using only the user password, instead
of the root password. This may be more convenient, but can also pose a
security risk."

[1]
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/f26/install-guide/install/Installing_Using...

-- 
Thanks,
Regards,
Ankur Sinha "FranciscoD"

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ankursinha

[Joonas Sarajärvi]

Terry Polzin kirjoitti 27.09.2017 klo 17:05:
>  In Anaconda adding a user account as an "Administrator"
> adds that user to
>  the "wheel" group by default the wheel group is enabled wthin sudo to run
>  all commands with "root" privileges.  After install adding a user to the
>  "wheel" group will have the same effect without the need to edit
>  /etc/sudoers via "vi sudo" and adding the user manually.
>   
Also editing only sudoers will not add a rule equivalent to what is set 
up for wheel group in /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/50-default.rules

I am not sure if there are even more places to look at if one wants an 
equivalent setup without the wheel group. If someone knows about 
documentation on this, would be awesome to have it posted on list.

- Joonas