This is an example of how to install wodim and other cdrkit applications to get the root permissions in a safer way. Usually it is not a good idea to run the applications as root or to give users the means to run wodim as root. This gives them an easy way to fetch sensitive data by writing it to the disk, or pass arbitrary SCSI commands, e.g. formatting a SCSI disk. This also applies to root-mode wrappers like sudo, they should be used with the most possible care. The alternative way is installing wodim as suid-root application. In this mode, wodim checks permission of the device access by comparing the ownership of the device node user/group attributes for the real UID/GID of the calling user. To give all user access to use wodim, enter: chown root /usr/local/bin/wodim chmod 4711 /usr/local/bin/wodim To give a restricted group of users access to wodim, add a group "cdburners" to your system and add the trusted users to this group. Then enter: chown root:cdburners /usr/local/bin/wodim chmod 4710 /usr/local/bin/wodim