Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual page 642

Chapter 43. Securing Your Network
Figure 43.2. Adding users to the "wheel" group.
Note
The root user is part of the wheel group by default.
43.1.4.3.2. The sudo Command
The sudo command offers another approach to giving users administrative access. When trusted
users precede an administrative command with sudo, they are prompted for their own password.
Then, when they have been authenticated and assuming that the command is permitted, the
administrative command is executed as if they were the root user.
The basic format of the sudo command is as follows:
sudo <command>
In the above example, <command> would be replaced by a command normally reserved for the root
user, such as mount.
Important
Users of the sudo command should take extra care to log out before walking away from
their machines since sudoers can use the command again without being asked for a
password within a five minute period. This setting can be altered via the configuration file,
/etc/sudoers.
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