How to Add Users to Sudo Group

By default, Redhat-based linux has a user group called the “wheel” group. Members of the wheel group are automatically granted sudo privileges. Adding a user to this group is a quick and easy way to grant sudo privileges to a user.

Step 1: Verify the Wheel Group is Enabled

Your CentOS 7 installation may or may not have the wheel group enabled.

Open the configuration file by entering the command:

visudo

Scroll through the configuration file until you see the following entry:

## Allows people in group wheel to run all commands
# %wheel        ALL=(ALL)       ALL

If the second line begins with the # sign, it has been disabled and marked as a comment. Just delete the # sign at the beginning of the second line so it looks like the following:

%wheel        ALL=(ALL)       ALL

Then save the file and exit the editor.

Step 2: Add User to Group

To add a user to the wheel group, use the command:

usermod -aG wheel NewUser

As usual, replace NewUser with the name of the user receiving sudo privileges.

If the above doesnt work: Add User to Sudoers Configuration File

If there’s a problem with the wheel group, or administrative policy prevents you from creating or modifying groups, you can add a user directly to the sudoers configuration file to grant sudo privileges.

Step 1: Open the Sudoers File in an Editor

In the terminal, run the following command:

visudo

This will open the /etc/sudoers file in a text editor.

Step 2: Add the New User to File

Scroll down to find the following section:

## Allow root to run any commands anywhere
root ALL=(ALL) ALL

Right after this entry, add the following text:

NewUser ALL=(ALL) ALL

Replace NewUser with the username you created in Step 2. This section should look like the following:

## Allow root to run any commands anywhere
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
NewUser ALL=(ALL) ALL

Save the file and exit.