sudo(8) — Linux manual page

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SUDO(8)                   System Manager's Manual                 SUDO(8)

NAME         top

       sudo, sudoedit — execute a command as another user

SYNOPSIS         top

       sudo -h | -K | -k | -V sudo -v [-ABkNnS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p
       prompt] [-u user] sudo -l [-ABkNnS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p
       prompt] [-U user] [-u user] [command [arg ...]] sudo [-ABbEHnPS]
       [-C num] [-D directory] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-R
       directory] [-T timeout] [-u user] [VAR=value] [-i | -s] [command
       [arg ...]] sudoedit [-ABkNnS] [-C num] [-D directory] [-g group]
       [-h host] [-p prompt] [-R directory] [-T timeout] [-u user]
       file ...

DESCRIPTION         top

       sudo, allows a permitted user to execute a command as the
       superuser or another user, as specified by the security policy.
       The invoking user's real (not effective) user-ID is used to
       determine the user name with which to query the security policy.

       sudo, supports a plugin architecture for security policies,
       auditing, and input/output logging.  Third parties can develop and
       distribute their own plugins to work seamlessly with the sudo,
       front-end.  The default security policy is sudoers, which is
       configured via the file /etc/sudoers, or via LDAP.  See the
       “Plugins” section for more information.

       The security policy determines what privileges, if any, a user has
       to run sudo,.  The policy may require that users authenticate
       themselves with a password or another authentication mechanism.
       If authentication is required, sudo, will exit if the user's
       password is not entered within a configurable time limit.  This
       limit is policy-specific; the default password prompt timeout for
       the sudoers security policy is 5 minutes.

       Security policies may support credential caching to allow the user
       to run sudo, again for a period of time without requiring
       authentication.  By default, the sudoers policy caches credentials
       on a per-terminal basis for 5 minutes.  See the timestamp_type and
       timestamp_timeout options in sudoers(5) for more information.  By
       running sudo, with the -v option, a user can update the cached
       credentials without running a command.

       On systems where sudo, is the primary method of gaining superuser
       privileges, it is imperative to avoid syntax errors in the
       security policy configuration files.  For the default security
       policy, sudoers(5), changes to the configuration files should be
       made using the visudo(8) utility which will ensure that no syntax
       errors are introduced.

       When invoked as sudoedit, the -e option (described below), is
       implied.

       Security policies and audit plugins may log successful and failed
       attempts to run sudo,.  If an I/O plugin is configured, the
       running command's input and output may be logged as well.

       The options are as follows:

       -A, --askpass
               Normally, if sudo, requires a password, it will read it
               from the user's terminal.  If the -A (askpass) option is
               specified, a (possibly graphical) helper program is
               executed to read the user's password and output the
               password to the standard output.  If the SUDO_ASKPASS
               environment variable is set, it specifies the path to the
               helper program.  Otherwise, if sudo.conf(5) contains a
               line specifying the askpass program, that value will be
               used.  For example:

                   # Path to askpass helper program
                   Path askpass /usr/X11R6/bin/ssh-askpass

               If no askpass program is available, sudo, will exit with
               an error.

       -B, --bell
               Ring the bell as part of the password prompt when a
               terminal is present.  This option has no effect if an
               askpass program is used.

       -b, --background
               Run the given command in the background.  It is not
               possible to use shell job control to manipulate background
               processes started by sudo,.  Most interactive commands
               will fail to work properly in background mode.

       -C num, --close-from=num
               Close all file descriptors greater than or equal to num
               before executing a command.  Values less than three are
               not permitted.  By default, sudo, will close all open file
               descriptors other than standard input, standard output,
               and standard error when executing a command.  The security
               policy may restrict the user's ability to use this option.
               The sudoers policy only permits use of the -C option when
               the administrator has enabled the closefrom_override
               option.

       -D directory, --chdir=directory
               Run the command in the specified directory instead of the
               current working directory.  The security policy may return
               an error if the user does not have permission to specify
               the working directory.

       -E, --preserve-env
               Indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to
               preserve their existing environment variables.  The
               security policy may return an error if the user does not
               have permission to preserve the environment.

       --preserve-env=list
               Indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to
               add the comma-separated list of environment variables to
               those preserved from the user's environment.  The security
               policy may return an error if the user does not have
               permission to preserve the environment.  This option may
               be specified multiple times.

       -e, --edit
               Edit one or more files instead of running a command.  In
               lieu of a path name, the string "sudoedit" is used when
               consulting the security policy.  If the user is authorized
               by the policy, the following steps are taken:

               1.   Temporary copies are made of the files to be edited
                    with the owner set to the invoking user.

               2.   The editor specified by the policy is run to edit the
                    temporary files.  The sudoers policy uses the
                    SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables
                    (in that order).  If none of SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL or
                    EDITOR are set, the first program listed in the
                    editor sudoers(5) option is used.

               3.   If they have been modified, the temporary files are
                    copied back to their original location and the
                    temporary versions are removed.

               To help prevent the editing of unauthorized files, the
               following restrictions are enforced unless explicitly
               allowed by the security policy:

                Symbolic links may not be edited (version 1.8.15 and
                   higher).

                Symbolic links along the path to be edited are not
                   followed when the parent directory is writable by the
                   invoking user unless that user is root (version 1.8.16
                   and higher).

                Files located in a directory that is writable by the
                   invoking user may not be edited unless that user is
                   root (version 1.8.16 and higher).

               Users are never allowed to edit device special files.

               If the specified file does not exist, it will be created.
               Unlike most commands run by sudo, the editor is run with
               the invoking user's environment unmodified.  If the
               temporary file becomes empty after editing, the user will
               be prompted before it is installed.  If, for some reason,
               sudo, is unable to update a file with its edited version,
               the user will receive a warning and the edited copy will
               remain in a temporary file.

       -g group, --group=group
               Run the command with the primary group set to group
               instead of the primary group specified by the target
               user's password database entry.  The group may be either a
               group name or a numeric group-ID (GID) prefixed with the
               ‘#’ character (e.g., ‘#0’ for GID 0).  When running a
               command as a GID, many shells require that the ‘#’ be
               escaped with a backslash (‘\’).  If no -u option is
               specified, the command will be run as the invoking user.
               In either case, the primary group will be set to group.
               The sudoers policy permits any of the target user's groups
               to be specified via the -g option as long as the -P option
               is not in use.

       -H, --set-home
               Request that the security policy set the HOME environment
               variable to the home directory specified by the target
               user's password database entry.  Depending on the policy,
               this may be the default behavior.

       -h, --help
               Display a short help message to the standard output and
               exit.

       -h host, --host=host
               Run the command on the specified host if the security
               policy plugin supports remote commands. The sudoers plugin
               does not currently support running remote commands. This
               may also be used in conjunction with the -l option to list
               a user's privileges for the remote host.

       -i, --login
               Run the shell specified by the target user's password
               database entry as a login shell.  This means that login-
               specific resource files such as .profile, .bash_profile,
               or .login will be read by the shell.  If a command is
               specified, it is passed to the shell as a simple command
               using the -c option.  The command and any args are
               concatenated, separated by spaces, after escaping each
               character (including white space) with a backslash (‘\’)
               except for alphanumerics, underscores, hyphens, and dollar
               signs.  If no command is specified, an interactive shell
               is executed.  sudo, attempts to change to that user's home
               directory before running the shell.  The command is run
               with an environment similar to the one a user would
               receive at log in.  Most shells behave differently when a
               command is specified as compared to an interactive
               session; consult the shell's manual for details.  The
               Command environment section in the sudoers(5) manual
               documents how the -i option affects the environment in
               which a command is run when the sudoers policy is in use.

       -K, --remove-timestamp
               Similar to the -k option, except that it removes every
               cached credential for the user, regardless of the terminal
               or parent process ID.  The next time sudo, is run, a
               password must be entered if the security policy requires
               authentication.  It is not possible to use the -K option
               in conjunction with a command or other option.  This
               option does not require a password.  Not all security
               policies support credential caching.

       -k, --reset-timestamp
               When used without a command, invalidates the user's cached
               credentials for the current session.  The next time sudo,
               is run in the session, a password must be entered if the
               security policy requires authentication.  By default, the
               sudoers policy uses a separate record in the credential
               cache for each terminal (or parent process ID if no
               terminal is present).  This prevents the -k option from
               interfering with sudo, commands run in a different
               terminal session.  See the timestamp_type option in
               sudoers(5) for more information.  This option does not
               require a password, and was added to allow a user to
               revoke sudo, permissions from a .logout file.

               When used in conjunction with a command or an option that
               may require a password, this option will cause sudo, to
               ignore the user's cached credentials.  As a result, sudo,
               will prompt for a password (if one is required by the
               security policy) and will not update the user's cached
               credentials.

               Not all security policies support credential caching.

       -l, --list
               If no command is specified, list the privileges for the
               invoking user (or the user specified by the -U option) on
               the current host.  A longer list format is used if this
               option is specified multiple times and the security policy
               supports a verbose output format.

               If a command is specified and is permitted by the security
               policy for the invoking user (or the, user specified by
               the -U option) on the current host, the fully-qualified
               path to the command is displayed along with any args. If
               -l is specified more than once (and the security policy
               supports it), the matching rule is displayed in a verbose
               format along with the command.  If a command is specified
               but not allowed by the policy, sudo, will exit with a
               status value of 1.

       -N, --no-update
               Do not update the user's cached credentials, even if the
               user successfully authenticates.  Unlike the -k flag,
               existing cached credentials are used if they are valid.
               To detect when the user's cached credentials are valid (or
               when no authentication is required), the following can be
               used:

                   sudo -Nnv

               Not all security policies support credential caching.

       -n, --non-interactive
               Avoid prompting the user for input of any kind.  If a
               password is required for the command to run, sudo, will
               display an error message and exit.

       -P, --preserve-groups
               Preserve the invoking user's group vector unaltered.  By
               default, the sudoers policy will initialize the group
               vector to the list of groups the target user is a member
               of.  The real and effective group-IDs, however, are still
               set to match the target user.

       -p prompt, --prompt=prompt
               Use a custom password prompt with optional escape
               sequences.  The following percent (‘%’) escape sequences
               are supported by the sudoers policy:

               %H  expanded to the host name including the domain name
                   (only if the machine's host name is fully qualified or
                   the fqdn option is set in sudoers(5))

               %h  expanded to the local host name without the domain
                   name

               %p  expanded to the name of the user whose password is
                   being requested (respects the rootpw, targetpw, and
                   runaspw flags in sudoers(5))

               %U  expanded to the login name of the user the command
                   will be run as (defaults to root unless the -u option
                   is also specified)

               %u  expanded to the invoking user's login name

               %%  two consecutive ‘%’ characters are collapsed into a
                   single ‘%’ character

               The custom prompt will override the default prompt
               specified by either the security policy or the SUDO_PROMPT
               environment variable.  On systems that use PAM, the custom
               prompt will also override the prompt specified by a PAM
               module unless the passprompt_override flag is disabled in
               sudoers.

       -R directory, --chroot=directory
               Change to the specified root directory (see chroot(8))
               before running the command.  The security policy may
               return an error if the user does not have permission to
               specify the root directory.

       -S, --stdin
               Write the prompt to the standard error and read the
               password from the standard input instead of using the
               terminal device.

       -s, --shell
               Run the shell specified by the SHELL environment variable
               if it is set or the shell specified by the invoking user's
               password database entry.  If a command is specified, it is
               passed to the shell as a simple command using the -c
               option.  The command and any args are concatenated,
               separated by spaces, after escaping each character
               (including white space) with a backslash (‘\’) except for
               alphanumerics, underscores, hyphens, and dollar signs.  If
               no command is specified, an interactive shell is executed.
               Most shells behave differently when a command is specified
               as compared to an interactive session; consult the shell's
               manual for details.

       -U user, --other-user=user
               Used in conjunction with the -l option to list the
               privileges for user instead of for the invoking user.  The
               security policy may restrict listing other users'
               privileges.  When using the sudoers policy, the -U option
               is restricted to the root user and users with either the
               “list” priviege for the specified user or the ability to
               run any command as root or user on the current host.

       -T timeout, --command-timeout=timeout
               Used to set a timeout for the command.  If the timeout
               expires before the command has exited, the command will be
               terminated.  The security policy may restrict the user's
               ability to set timeouts.  The sudoers policy requires that
               user-specified timeouts be explicitly enabled.

       -u user, --user=user
               Run the command as a user other than the default target
               user (usually root).  The user may be either a user name
               or a numeric user-ID (UID) prefixed with the ‘#’ character
               (e.g., ‘#0’ for UID 0).  When running commands as a UID,
               many shells require that the ‘#’ be escaped with a
               backslash (‘\’).  Some security policies may restrict UIDs
               to those listed in the password database.  The sudoers
               policy allows UIDs that are not in the password database
               as long as the targetpw option is not set.  Other security
               policies may not support this.

       -V, --version
               Print the sudo, version string as well as the version
               string of any configured plugins.  If the invoking user is
               already root, the -V option will display the options
               passed to configure when sudo, was built; plugins may
               display additional information such as default options.

       -v, --validate
               Update the user's cached credentials, authenticating the
               user if necessary.  For the sudoers plugin, this extends
               the sudo, timeout for another 5 minutes by default, but
               does not run a command.  Not all security policies support
               cached credentials.

       --      The -- is used to delimit the end of the sudo, options.
               Subsequent options are passed to the command.

       Options that take a value may only be specified once unless
       otherwise indicated in the description.  This is to help guard
       against problems caused by poorly written scripts that invoke sudo
       with user-controlled input.

       Environment variables to be set for the command may also be passed
       as options to sudo, in the form VAR=value, for example
       LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/pkg/lib.  Environment variables may be
       subject to restrictions imposed by the security policy plugin.
       The sudoers policy subjects environment variables passed as
       options to the same restrictions as existing environment variables
       with one important difference.  If the setenv option is set in
       sudoers, the command to be run has the SETENV tag set or the
       command matched is ALL, the user may set variables that would
       otherwise be forbidden.  See sudoers(5) for more information.

COMMAND EXECUTION         top

       When sudo, executes a command, the security policy specifies the
       execution environment for the command.  Typically, the real and
       effective user and group and IDs are set to match those of the
       target user, as specified in the password database, and the group
       vector is initialized based on the group database (unless the -P
       option was specified).

       The following parameters may be specified by security policy:

       real and effective user-ID

       real and effective group-ID

       supplementary group-IDs

       the environment list

       current working directory

       file creation mode mask (umask)

       scheduling priority (aka nice value)

   Process model
       There are two distinct ways sudo, can run a command.

       If an I/O logging plugin is configured to log terminal I/O, or if
       the security policy explicitly requests it, a new pseudo-terminal
       (“pty”) is allocated and fork(2) is used to create a second sudo,
       process, referred to as the monitor.  The monitor creates a new
       terminal session with itself as the leader and the pty as its
       controlling terminal, calls fork(2) again, sets up the execution
       environment as described above, and then uses the execve(2) system
       call to run the command in the child process.  The monitor exists
       to relay job control signals between the user's terminal and the
       pty the command is being run in.  This makes it possible to
       suspend and resume the command normally.  Without the monitor, the
       command would be in what POSIX terms an “orphaned process group”
       and it would not receive any job control signals from the kernel.
       When the command exits or is terminated by a signal, the monitor
       passes the command's exit status to the main sudo, process and
       exits.  After receiving the command's exit status, the main sudo,
       process passes the command's exit status to the security policy's
       close function, as well as the close function of any configured
       audit plugin, and exits.  This mode is the default for sudo
       versions 1.9.14 and above when using the sudoers policy.

       If no pty is used, sudo, calls fork(2), sets up the execution
       environment as described above, and uses the execve(2) system call
       to run the command in the child process.  The main sudo, process
       waits until the command has completed, then passes the command's
       exit status to the security policy's close function, as well as
       the close function of any configured audit plugins, and exits.  As
       a special case, if the policy plugin does not define a close
       function, sudo, will execute the command directly instead of
       calling fork(2) first.  The sudoers policy plugin will only define
       a close function when I/O logging is enabled, a pty is required,
       an SELinux role is specified, the command has an associated
       timeout, or the pam_session or pam_setcred options are enabled.
       Both pam_session and pam_setcred are enabled by default on systems
       using PAM.  This mode is the default for sudo versions prior to
       1.9.14 when using the sudoers policy.

       On systems that use PAM, the security policy's close function is
       responsible for closing the PAM session.  It may also log the
       command's exit status.

   Signal handling
       When the command is run as a child of the sudo, process, sudo,
       will relay signals it receives to the command.  The SIGINT and
       SIGQUIT signals are only relayed when the command is being run in
       a new pty or when the signal was sent by a user process, not the
       kernel.  This prevents the command from receiving SIGINT twice
       each time the user enters control-C.  Some signals, such as
       SIGSTOP and SIGKILL, cannot be caught and thus will not be relayed
       to the command.  As a general rule, SIGTSTP should be used instead
       of SIGSTOP when you wish to suspend a command being run by sudo,.

       As a special case, sudo, will not relay signals that were sent by
       the command it is running.  This prevents the command from
       accidentally killing itself.  On some systems, the reboot(8)
       utility sends SIGTERM to all non-system processes other than
       itself before rebooting the system.  This prevents sudo, from
       relaying the SIGTERM signal it received back to reboot(8), which
       might then exit before the system was actually rebooted, leaving
       it in a half-dead state similar to single user mode.  Note,
       however, that this check only applies to the command run by sudo,
       and not any other processes that the command may create.  As a
       result, running a script that calls reboot(8) or shutdown(8) via
       sudo, may cause the system to end up in this undefined state
       unless the reboot(8) or shutdown(8) are run using the exec()
       family of functions instead of system() (which interposes a shell
       between the command and the calling process).

   Plugins
       Plugins may be specified via Plugin directives in the sudo.conf(5)
       file.  They may be loaded as dynamic shared objects (on systems
       that support them), or compiled directly into the sudo, binary.
       If no sudo.conf(5) file is present, or if it doesn't contain any
       Plugin lines, sudo, will use sudoers(5) for the policy, auditing,
       and I/O logging plugins.  See the sudo.conf(5) manual for details
       of the /etc/sudo.conf file and the sudo_plugin(5) manual for more
       information about the sudo, plugin architecture.

EXIT VALUE         top

       Upon successful execution of a command, the exit status from sudo,
       will be the exit status of the program that was executed.  If the
       command terminated due to receipt of a signal, sudo, will send
       itself the same signal that terminated the command.

       If the -l option was specified without a command, sudo, will exit
       with a value of 0 if the user is allowed to run sudo, and they
       authenticated successfully (as required by the security policy).
       If a command is specified with the -l option, the exit value will
       only be 0 if the command is permitted by the security policy,
       otherwise it will be 1.

       If there is an authentication failure, a configuration/permission
       problem, or if the given command cannot be executed, sudo, exits
       with a value of 1.  In the latter case, the error string is
       printed to the standard error.  If sudo, cannot stat(2) one or
       more entries in the user's PATH, an error is printed to the
       standard error.  (If the directory does not exist or if it is not
       really a directory, the entry is ignored and no error is printed.)
       This should not happen under normal circumstances.  The most
       common reason for stat(2) to return “permission denied” is if you
       are running an automounter and one of the directories in your PATH
       is on a machine that is currently unreachable.

SECURITY NOTES         top

       sudo, tries to be safe when executing external commands.

       To prevent command spoofing, sudo, checks "." and "" (both
       denoting current directory) last when searching for a command in
       the user's PATH (if one or both are in the PATH).  Depending on
       the security policy, the user's PATH environment variable may be
       modified, replaced, or passed unchanged to the program that sudo,
       executes.

       Users should never be granted sudo, privileges to execute files
       that are writable by the user or that reside in a directory that
       is writable by the user.  If the user can modify or replace the
       command there is no way to limit what additional commands they can
       run.

       By default, sudo, will only log the command it explicitly runs.
       If a user runs a command such as ‘sudo su’ or ‘sudo sh’,
       subsequent commands run from that shell are not subject to sudo's
       security policy.  The same is true for commands that offer shell
       escapes (including most editors).  If I/O logging is enabled,
       subsequent commands will have their input and/or output logged,
       but there will not be traditional logs for those commands. Because
       of this, care must be taken when giving users access to commands
       via sudo, to verify that the command does not inadvertently give
       the user an effective root shell.  For information on ways to
       address this, see the Preventing shell escapes section in
       sudoers(5).

       To prevent the disclosure of potentially sensitive information,
       sudo, disables core dumps by default while it is executing (they
       are re-enabled for the command that is run).  This historical
       practice dates from a time when most operating systems allowed
       set-user-ID processes to dump core by default.  To aid in
       debugging sudo, crashes, you may wish to re-enable core dumps by
       setting “disable_coredump” to false in the sudo.conf(5) file as
       follows:

           Set disable_coredump false

       See the sudo.conf(5) manual for more information.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       sudo, utilizes the following environment variables.  The security
       policy has control over the actual content of the command's
       environment.

       EDITOR           Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode if
                        neither SUDO_EDITOR nor VISUAL is set.

       MAIL             Set to the mail spool of the target user when the
                        -i option is specified, or when env_reset is
                        enabled in sudoers (unless MAIL is present in the
                        env_keep list).

       HOME             Set to the home directory of the target user when
                        the -i or -H options are specified, when the -s
                        option is specified and set_home is set in
                        sudoers, when always_set_home is enabled in
                        sudoers, or when env_reset is enabled in sudoers
                        and HOME is not present in the env_keep list.

       LOGNAME          Set to the login name of the target user when the
                        -i option is specified, when the set_logname
                        option is enabled in sudoers, or when the
                        env_reset option is enabled in sudoers (unless
                        LOGNAME is present in the env_keep list).

       PATH             May be overridden by the security policy.

       SHELL            Used to determine shell to run with -s option.

       SUDO_ASKPASS     Specifies the path to a helper program used to
                        read the password if no terminal is available or
                        if the -A option is specified.

       SUDO_COMMAND     Set to the command run by sudo, including any
                        args. The args are truncated at 4096 characters
                        to prevent a potential execution error.

       SUDO_EDITOR      Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode.

       SUDO_GID         Set to the group-ID of the user who invoked sudo.

       SUDO_HOME        Set to the home directory of the user who invoked
                        sudo.

       SUDO_PROMPT      Used as the default password prompt unless the -p
                        option was specified.

       SUDO_PS1         If set, PS1 will be set to its value for the
                        program being run.

       SUDO_UID         Set to the user-ID of the user who invoked sudo.

       SUDO_USER        Set to the login name of the user who invoked
                        sudo.

       USER             Set to the same value as LOGNAME, described
                        above.

       VISUAL           Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode if
                        SUDO_EDITOR is not set.

FILES         top

       /etc/sudo.conf            sudo, front-end configuration

EXAMPLES         top

       The following examples assume a properly configured security
       policy.

       To get a file listing of an unreadable directory:

           $ sudo ls /usr/local/protected

       To list the home directory of user yaz on a machine where the file
       system holding ~yaz is not exported as root:

           $ sudo -u yaz ls ~yaz

       To edit the index.html file as user www:

           $ sudoedit -u www ~www/htdocs/index.html

       To view system logs only accessible to root and users in the adm
       group:

           $ sudo -g adm more /var/log/syslog

       To run an editor as jim with a different primary group:

           $ sudoedit -u jim -g audio ~jim/sound.txt

       To shut down a machine:

           $ sudo shutdown -r +15 "quick reboot"

       To make a usage listing of the directories in the /home partition.
       The commands are run in a sub-shell to allow the ‘cd’ command and
       file redirection to work.

           $ sudo sh -c "cd /home ; du -s * | sort -rn > USAGE"

DIAGNOSTICS         top

       Error messages produced by sudo, include:

       editing files in a writable directory is not permitted
             By default, sudoedit does not permit editing a file when any
             of the parent directories are writable by the invoking user.
             This avoids a race condition that could allow the user to
             overwrite an arbitrary file.  See the sudoedit_checkdir
             option in sudoers(5) for more information.

       editing symbolic links is not permitted
             By default, sudoedit does not follow symbolic links when
             opening files.  See the sudoedit_follow option in sudoers(5)
             for more information.

       effective uid is not 0, is sudo installed setuid root?
             sudo, was not run with root privileges.  The sudo, binary
             must be owned by the root user and have the set-user-ID bit
             set.  Also, it must not be located on a file system mounted
             with the ‘nosuid’ option or on an NFS file system that maps
             uid 0 to an unprivileged uid.

       effective uid is not 0, is sudo on a file system with the 'nosuid'
             option set or an NFS file system without root privileges?
             sudo, was not run with root privileges.  The sudo, binary
             has the proper owner and permissions but it still did not
             run with root privileges.  The most common reason for this
             is that the file system the sudo, binary is located on is
             mounted with the ‘nosuid’ option or it is an NFS file system
             that maps uid 0 to an unprivileged uid.

       fatal error, unable to load plugins
             An error occurred while loading or initializing the plugins
             specified in sudo.conf(5).

       invalid environment variable name
             One or more environment variable names specified via the -E
             option contained an equal sign (‘=’).  The arguments to the
             -E option should be environment variable names without an
             associated value.

       no password was provided
             When sudo, tried to read the password, it did not receive
             any characters.  This may happen if no terminal is available
             (or the -S option is specified) and the standard input has
             been redirected from /dev/null.

       a terminal is required to read the password
             sudo, needs to read the password but there is no mechanism
             available for it to do so.  Remote commands run via ssh(1)
             do not have a terminal available by default; passing the -t
             option to ssh(1) will cause it to allocate a terminal which
             should allow sudo, to read the password.  To allow sudo, to
             run local commands without a terminal, the -S option can be
             used to read a password from the standard input, or an
             askpass helper can be configured via either the sudo.conf(5)
             file or by setting the SUDO_ASKPASS environment variable.

       no writable temporary directory found
             sudoedit was unable to find a usable temporary directory in
             which to store its intermediate files.

       The “no new privileges” flag is set, which prevents sudo from
             running as root.
             sudo, was run by a process that has the Linux “no new
             privileges” flag is set.  This causes the set-user-ID bit to
             be ignored when running an executable, which will prevent
             sudo, from functioning.  The most likely cause for this is
             running sudo, within a container that sets this flag.  Check
             the documentation to see if it is possible to configure the
             container such that the flag is not set.

       sudo must be owned by uid 0 and have the setuid bit set
             sudo, was not run with root privileges.  The sudo, binary
             does not have the correct owner or permissions.  It must be
             owned by the root user and have the set-user-ID bit set.

       sudoedit is not supported on this platform
             It is only possible to run sudoedit on systems that support
             setting the effective user-ID.

       timed out reading password
             The user did not enter a password before the password
             timeout (5 minutes by default) expired.

       you do not exist in the passwd database
             Your user-ID does not appear in the system passwd database.

       you may not specify environment variables in edit mode
             It is only possible to specify environment variables when
             running a command.  When editing a file, the editor is run
             with the user's environment unmodified.

SEE ALSO         top

       su(1), stat(2), login_cap(3), passwd(5), sudo.conf(5),
       sudo_plugin(5), sudoers(5), sudoers_timestamp(5), sudoreplay(8),
       visudo(8)

HISTORY         top

       See the HISTORY.md file in the sudo, distribution
       (https://www.sudo.ws/about/history/) for a brief history of sudo.

AUTHORS         top

       Many people have worked on sudo, over the years; this version
       consists of code written primarily by:

             Todd C. Miller

       See the CONTRIBUTORS.md file in the sudo, distribution
       (https://www.sudo.ws/about/contributors/) for an exhaustive list
       of people who have contributed to sudo,.

CAVEATS         top

       There is no easy way to prevent a user from gaining a root shell
       if that user is allowed to run arbitrary commands via sudo,.
       Also, many programs (such as editors) allow the user to run
       commands via shell escapes, thus avoiding sudo's checks.  However,
       on most systems it is possible to prevent shell escapes with the
       sudoers(5) plugin's noexec functionality.

       It is not meaningful to run the ‘cd’ command directly via sudo,
       e.g.,

           $ sudo cd /usr/local/protected

       since when the command exits the parent process (your shell) will
       still be the same.  The -D option can be used to run a command in
       a specific directory.

       Running shell scripts via sudo, can expose the same kernel bugs
       that make set-user-ID shell scripts unsafe on some operating
       systems (if your OS has a /dev/fd/ directory, set-user-ID shell
       scripts are generally safe).

BUGS         top

       If you believe you have found a bug in sudo,, you can either file
       a bug report in the sudo bug database, https://bugzilla.sudo.ws/,
       or open an issue at https://github.com/sudo-project/sudo/issues.
       If you would prefer to use email, messages may be sent to the
       sudo-workers mailing list,
       https://www.sudo.ws/mailman/listinfo/sudo-workers (public) or
       <sudo@sudo.ws> (private).

       Please not report security vulnerabilities through public GitHub
       issues, Bugzilla or mailing lists.  Instead, report them via email
       to <Todd.Miller@sudo.ws>.  You may encrypt your message with PGP
       if you would like, using the key found at
       https://www.sudo.ws/dist/PGPKEYS.

SUPPORT         top

       Limited free support is available via the sudo-users mailing list,
       see https://www.sudo.ws/mailman/listinfo/sudo-users to subscribe
       or search the archives.

DISCLAIMER         top

       sudo, is provided “AS IS” and any express or implied warranties,
       including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of
       merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are
       disclaimed.  See the LICENSE.md file distributed with sudo, or
       https://www.sudo.ws/about/license/ for complete details.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the sudo (execute a command as another user)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at
       https://www.sudo.ws/.  If you have a bug report for this manual
       page, see ⟨https://bugzilla.sudo.ws/⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/sudo-project/sudo⟩ on 2025-02-02.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2025-01-21.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Sudo 1.9.16p2               December 20, 2024                     SUDO(8)

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