Wheel (computing)

Last updated

In Unix operating systems, the term wheel refers to a user account with a wheel bit, a system setting that provides additional special system privileges that empower a user to execute restricted commands that ordinary user accounts cannot access. [1] [2]

Contents

Origins

The term wheel was first applied to computer user privilege levels after the introduction of the TENEX operating system, later distributed under the name TOPS-20 in the 1960s and early 1970s. [2] [3] The term was derived from the slang phrase big wheel , referring to a person with great power or influence. [1]

In the 1980s, the term was imported into Unix culture due to the migration of operating system developers and users from TENEX/TOPS-20 to Unix. [2]

Wheel group

Modern Unix systems generally use user groups as a security protocol to control access privileges. The wheel group is a special user group used on some Unix systems, mostly BSD systems,[ citation needed ] to control access to the su [4] [5] or sudo command, which allows a user to masquerade as another user (usually the super user). [1] [2] [6] Debian and its derivatives create a group called sudo with purpose similar to that of a wheel group. [7]

Wheel war

The phrase wheel war, which originated at Stanford University, [8] is a term used in computer culture, first documented in the 1983 version of The Jargon File. A 'wheel war' was a user conflict in a multi-user (see also: multiseat ) computer system, in which students with administrative privileges would attempt to lock each other out of a university's computer system, sometimes causing unintentional harm to other users. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free software</span> Software licensed to be freely used, modified and distributed

Free software, libre software, libreware or rarely known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price; all users are legally free to do what they want with their copies of a free software regardless of how much is paid to obtain the program. Computer programs are deemed "free" if they give end-users ultimate control over the software and, subsequently, over their devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unix shell</span> Command-line interpreter for Unix operating system

A Unix shell is a command-line interpreter or shell that provides a command line user interface for Unix-like operating systems. The shell is both an interactive command language and a scripting language, and is used by the operating system to control the execution of the system using shell scripts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TOPS-20</span> Operating system by Digital Equipment Corporation

The TOPS-20 operating system by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) is a proprietary OS used on some of DEC's 36-bit mainframe computers. The Hardware Reference Manual was described as for "DECsystem-10/DECSYSTEM-20 Processor".

man page Unix software documentation

A man page is a form of software documentation usually found on a Unix or Unix-like operating system. Topics covered include computer programs, formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts. A user may invoke a man page by issuing the man command.

Unix security refers to the means of securing a Unix or Unix-like operating system.

In computing, the superuser is a special user account used for system administration. Depending on the operating system (OS), the actual name of this account might be root, administrator, admin or supervisor. In some cases, the actual name of the account is not the determining factor; on Unix-like systems, for example, the user with a user identifier (UID) of zero is the superuser, regardless of the name of that account; and in systems which implement a role-based security model, any user with the role of superuser can carry out all actions of the superuser account. The principle of least privilege recommends that most users and applications run under an ordinary account to perform their work, as a superuser account is capable of making unrestricted, potentially adverse, system-wide changes.

In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct and separate piece of software. The term often implies not merely a development branch, but also a split in the developer community; as such, it is a form of schism. Grounds for forking are varying user preferences and stagnated or discontinued development of the original software.

The Unix command su, which stands for 'substitute user', is used by a computer user to execute commands with the privileges of another user account. When executed it invokes a shell without changing the current working directory or the user environment.

chroot Operation that changes the apparent root directory in Unix-like systems

chroot is an operation on Unix and Unix-like operating systems that changes the apparent root directory for the current running process and its children. A program that is run in such a modified environment cannot name files outside the designated directory tree. The term "chroot" may refer to the chroot(2) system call or the chroot(8) wrapper program. The modified environment is called a chroot jail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pseudoterminal</span> Pair of pseudo-device endpoints

In some operating systems, including Unix-like systems, a pseudoterminal, pseudotty, or PTY is a pair of pseudo-device endpoints (files) which establish asynchronous, bidirectional communication (IPC) channel between two or more processes.

sudo Command on Unix systems to temporarily assume root privileges

sudo is a program for Unix-like computer operating systems that enables users to run programs with the security privileges of another user, by default the superuser. It originally stood for "superuser do", as that was all it did, and this remains its most common usage; however, the official Sudo project page lists it as "su 'do'". The current Linux manual pages for su define it as "substitute user", making the correct meaning of sudo "substitute user, do", because sudo can run a command as other users as well.

Unix-like operating systems identify a user by a value called a user identifier, often abbreviated to user ID or UID. The UID, along with the group identifier (GID) and other access control criteria, is used to determine which system resources a user can access. The password file maps textual user names to UIDs. UIDs are stored in the inodes of the Unix file system, running processes, tar archives, and the now-obsolete Network Information Service. In POSIX-compliant environments, the shell command id gives the current user's UID, as well as more information such as the user name, primary user group and group identifier (GID).

A number of computer operating systems employ security features to help prevent malicious software from gaining sufficient privileges to compromise the computer system. Operating systems lacking such features, such as DOS, Windows implementations prior to Windows NT, CP/M-80, and all Mac operating systems prior to Mac OS X, had only one category of user who was allowed to do anything. With separate execution contexts it is possible for multiple users to store private files, for multiple users to use a computer at the same time, to protect the system against malicious users, and to protect the system against malicious programs. The first multi-user secure system was Multics, which began development in the 1960s; it wasn't until UNIX, BSD, Linux, and NT in the late 80s and early 90s that multi-tasking security contexts were brought to x86 consumer machines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkeley Software Distribution</span> Unix operating system

The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley. The term "BSD" commonly refers to its open-source descendants, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly BSD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unix-like</span> Operating system that behaves similarly to Unix, e.g. Linux

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-like application is one that behaves like the corresponding Unix command or shell. Although there are general philosophies for Unix design, there is no technical standard defining the term, and opinions can differ about the degree to which a particular operating system or application is Unix-like.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unix</span> Family of computer operating systems

Unix is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others.

The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities, including Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), Carnegie Mellon University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It was published in paperback form in 1983 as The Hacker's Dictionary, revised in 1991 as The New Hacker's Dictionary.

TENEX is an operating system developed in 1969 by BBN for the PDP-10, which later formed the basis for Digital Equipment Corporation's TOPS-20 operating system.

doas is a program to execute commands as another user. The system administrator can configure it to give specified users privileges to execute specified commands. It is free and open-source under the ISC license and available in Unix and Unix-like operating systems.

In computing, a status key is a keyboard key that causes an operating system and/or a program to output status information on a terminal when it is pressed. In the event that a program on a terminal produces no indications that it is running, typing the status key will reveal the program's state and activity. Older implementations produced only a quick one-line status report for the current job when the status key was pressed. Newer implementations support sending a signal to the current process to allow the application to report on status as well.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Wheel". Jargon File 4.4.7. Eric S. Raymond. Retrieved 2017-04-22.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Wheel bit". Jargon File 4.4.7. Eric S. Raymond. Retrieved 2017-04-22.
  3. ↑ "TWENEX". Jargon File 4.4.7. Eric S. Raymond. Retrieved 2008-09-12.
  4. ↑ "su(1) - OpenBSD manual pages". man.openbsd.org. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  5. ↑ "su". www.freebsd.org. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  6. ↑ Levi, Bozidar (2002). UNIX Administration: A Comprehensive Sourcebook for Effective Systems and Network Management. CRC Press. p. 207. ISBN   0-8493-1351-1.
  7. ↑ "Why is Debian not creating the 'wheel' group by default?". Unix & Linux Stack Exchange. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  8. ↑ Raymond; et al. "Jargon File". Jargon File 2.1.1. Eric S. Raymond. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  9. ↑ Steele; et al. "Jargon File". Jargon File 1.5.0. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.