9.2.2 "Why GNU su does not support the wheel group"
This is the famous phrase at the bottom of the old info su page by
Richard M. Stallman. Not to worry: the current su in Debian uses
PAM, so that one can restrict the ability to use su to any group
using pam_wheel.so in /etc/pam.d/su. The following
will set the adm group in a Debian system as an equivalent of the
BSD wheel group and allow su without a password for
its members.
# anti-RMS configuration in /etc/pam.d/su
auth required pam_wheel.so group=adm
# Wheel members to be able to su without a password
auth sufficient pam_wheel.so trust group=adm
