In computing, the term wheel refers to a user account with a wheel bit, 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 phrase big wheel, referring to a person with great power or influence. It was first used in this context with regard to the TENEX operating system, later distributed under the name TOPS-20 in the 1960s and early 1970s.
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The term was adopted by Unix users in the 1980s, due to the movement of operating system developers and users from TENEX/TOPS-20 to Unix. Modern Unix implementations generally include a security protocol that requires a user to be a member of the wheel user privileges group in order to gain superuser access to a machine by using the sudo command.
Wheel group
Modern Unix systems use user groups to control access privileges. The wheel group is a special user group used on some Unix systems to control access to the sudo command, which allows a user to masquerade as another user (usually the super user).
Wheel war
The phrase wheel war, which originated at Stanford University, was first documented in the 1983 version of The Jargon File. A 'wheel war' was characterized as a part of an immature 'larval phase' wherein students with administrative privileges would attempt to lock each other out of a university's multi-user (see also:multiseat) computer system, sometimes causing unintentional harm to other users. By 2008, it had come into colloquial use amongst Wikipedia administrators in reference to the misuse of administrative tools during disputes.