06-10-2016
Hi Herb,
I might be a bit old fashioned here, but it used to be part of the SA's job to ensure that no one other than the SA had access to the root account. It also used to be drummed into SA's that any application that had to be installed as root was basically flawed.
From a security perspective any such application was a likely candidate for an exploit, so should not be allowed. As to giving an external vendor root access, not going to happen on my watch - why?
A real example - I have had a black box system delivered from a major international telecommunications company, complete with two back door (UID 0:GID 1) accounts setup. Additionally in the applications directory there was a SUID file called xyzzy which turned out to be a copy of the /usr/bin/ksh binary.
I would trust no person outside the systems admin team, where the requirement was to have the root password - in some cases I wouldn't trust people in the team, but that was for a different reason.
Regards
Gull04
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LEARN ABOUT LINUX
pam_wheel
PAM_WHEEL(8) Linux-PAM Manual PAM_WHEEL(8)
NAME
pam_wheel - Only permit root access to members of group wheel
SYNOPSIS
pam_wheel.so [debug] [deny] [group=name] [root_only] [trust]
DESCRIPTION
The pam_wheel PAM module is used to enforce the so-called wheel group. By default it permits root access to the system if the applicant
user is a member of the wheel group. If no group with this name exist, the module is using the group with the group-ID 0.
OPTIONS
debug
Print debug information.
deny
Reverse the sense of the auth operation: if the user is trying to get UID 0 access and is a member of the wheel group (or the group of
the group option), deny access. Conversely, if the user is not in the group, return PAM_IGNORE (unless trust was also specified, in
which case we return PAM_SUCCESS).
group=name
Instead of checking the wheel or GID 0 groups, use the name group to perform the authentication.
root_only
The check for wheel membership is done only.
trust
The pam_wheel module will return PAM_SUCCESS instead of PAM_IGNORE if the user is a member of the wheel group (thus with a little play
stacking the modules the wheel members may be able to su to root without being prompted for a passwd).
MODULE TYPES PROVIDED
The auth and account module types are provided.
RETURN VALUES
PAM_AUTH_ERR
Authentication failure.
PAM_BUF_ERR
Memory buffer error.
PAM_IGNORE
The return value should be ignored by PAM dispatch.
PAM_PERM_DENY
Permission denied.
PAM_SERVICE_ERR
Cannot determine the user name.
PAM_SUCCESS
Success.
PAM_USER_UNKNOWN
User not known.
EXAMPLES
The root account gains access by default (rootok), only wheel members can become root (wheel) but Unix authenticate non-root applicants.
su auth sufficient pam_rootok.so
su auth required pam_wheel.so
su auth required pam_unix.so
SEE ALSO
pam.conf(5), pam.d(5), pam(7)
AUTHOR
pam_wheel was written by Cristian Gafton <gafton@redhat.com>.
Linux-PAM Manual 05/31/2011 PAM_WHEEL(8)