previously nonexistent user in permissions labeled “wheel” - what is that?

a_r_kitekt wrote:

I saw another question about it, but that guy was content to be told “ don’t touch it” and leave it at that. I am not asking permission to mess with it, I just want to learn, as I am studying front end development at the moment, and also because I have tot learn everything all the time,

"wheel" is, or was, a user group, not a user. Here is tiny wikipedia page for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_(computing)

Here is a little bit more detail: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/152442/what-is-the-significance-of-the-wheel-group

It looks like macOS doesn't use the wheel group anymore. It used to be common to see that years ago. But I don't see it here on my Ventura system. Administrator users are in the "admin" group. Regular users are in the "staff" group. I'm a developer so my system is more complex than it would be for normal people.

There are various system users and groups that have significantly restricted permissions. These are used in the background, you shouldn't ever have to interact with them.

Wheel is a name for group 0, which is the same group used by the root user; user 0.

root is (was) a fully-privileged user.

(macOS nerfed root a while back. There are now a number of operations that a root login simply cannot perform.)

The root password, and membership in the wheel group, are very old ways to allow access to the su and related commands; to commands restricted to administrators.

Wheel is derived from BSD UNIX, and is not used all that much in this macOS era.

On macOS, su is accessible to the admin group, so wheel (and root) has largely been deprecated.

Apple has been working to remove the need for root, and default-disabled the root login some years ago.

Use of sudo or (on OpenBSD) doas are preferred to logging into the root user, and are also preferable to a su-created root shell.

Running as root is unnecessarily hazardous, and—when used as a shared login—less than fully accountable.

In short, what was commonly using the wheel group is now preferably using the admin group and sudo.

Related: https://www.openbsdhandbook.com/system_management/privileges/

Perhaps that sounds like throw-back to earlier Mac OS; still could appear at times.

what does "wheel" mean for custom access - Apple Community

wheel= admin. In computing, the term wheel refers to a user account with

a wheel bit. Or a system setting that provides additional special system

privileges that empower a user to execute restricted commands that

ordinary user accounts cannot access. The term is derived from the

slang term big wheel, referring.." An admin user account, could be

a second Admin to a first user, also an Admin. ~ But not necessarily, as

also could well mean Superuser; or Root; layer above Admin user accts.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=macOS+permission+named+Wheel&ia=web

.A wide search result kinda tells a few things ~ without posting too many links here.