As much as I agree with denn, that sudo tool can enable you to get the permissions that you want to take place, And as much as I agree with flatopokey that webmin is a very useful tool, however, I disagree with their approach to work the project.
Their approach is to deal with one user at a time, which builds permissions around every user on his/her own. Thus causing same-level employees to have more permissions than others. That can cause long term administrative problems on the long run.
My approach is to build your security policy around the "job description". Then assign users and groups to these job descriptions. That means you need more than just user/group/others, backed up by timed cron jobs.
SE Linux gives you the ability to set more than 4000 levels of "job descriptions", on the core kernel level. The moment you change the "job description", by default all users, groups, applications permissions, and rights, in that category, will follow.
My quick assessment is that you need a 4 steps project:
1- Get the job descriptions for everyone that will access your system, with the assistance of the two arms : human resources, and financial management, know what files or directories these "job descriptions" need to access, or have access denied.
2- Decide if using Webmin and Usermin will suffice for the project, as you'll work on the 'that guy' level. Or that you have too many users that you need to work on the 'job description' level.
3- For less than 30 job descriptions, I recommend aggressive usage of sodu, then webmin and user min. For more than 30 job descriptions in one company, or more than 200+ employees (I'm cynical in these numbers) I recommend to install SE Linux batch. Your 2.6 kernel has support for it.
4- Look the screen shots at
screens - SETools Policy Analysis Suite - Trac. You can use the SLIDE application to manage it.
SELinux Policy IDE (SLIDE) - Trac . Go further to use project CLIP as a presentation to your boss, on how you are planning on it. Choose which model you wish to apply
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/papers/policy2/x84.html
Finally, I think this is a fun and great project, so enjoy every minute of it. You'll be amazed how much you'll know about UNIX by the end of it.
Good luck Mike