When I SFTP in as a member of ‘wheel’ group, I can’t see files that have root permission ( like logfiles and configuration files that I need to access!) . I can change permissions via SSH, but I am worried about breaking things in the background if i take file or folder ownership away from root! Can anyone advise the best practice for giving a non-root user real administrative powers? I’m used to actually having root, in CentOS… this is pretty frustrating so far
That isn’t the intention of wheel. The point of wheel is to control access to the su or sudo command. It doesn’t outwardly provide more access than that to files or directories. Another example is if you’re part of the adm group, that gives you the ability to see into the journal (journalctl) fully without being root.
Depending on what the files or directories are, you may be better off using file acls (see man setfacl).
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