[Bug 32906] Re: sudo fails if it cannot resolve the local hostname and no MTA is installed

[ray]

is this really fixed and gone for good? i see this in precise again.
i don't want sudo to make network lookups. i want a option to restrict it to local operation only. for now only because it is annoying to wait for the lookup. you already discussed the issues.
the networking features are nice but should not be default.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/32906

Title:
  sudo fails if it cannot resolve the local hostname and no MTA is
  installed

Status in sudo:
  Fix Released
Status in “sudo” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “sudo” source package in Hardy:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  On behalf of Adam Williamson [*]

  adamw at ubuntu510:~$ sudo scp 192.168.2.7:/etc/hosts /etc

  adamw at ubuntu510:~$ sudo nano /etc/hosts

  sudo: unable to lookup ubuntu510 via gethostbyname()

  …yeah, sudo, it’s all very clever until someone loses an eye!

  I have a bunch of entries in /etc/hosts because of having four local
  systems plus a bunch of VMware machines etc. So now when I set up a
  new VMware machine I just copy the /etc/hosts from the real machine
  over to the VM then edit a couple of lines to match the VM, instead of
  re-editing it all from scratch. Only, as you can see, this utterly
  breaks Ubuntu…all I need to do to fix the sudo problem is edit
  /etc/hosts so 127.0.0.1 is ‘ubuntu510′ (the name of the VM) rather
  than ‘zen’ (the name of the real machine), but I can’t do it, because
  sudo doesn’t work…

  the only way out of this that I can see is single-user mode or the
  recovery console. Not too smart! Surely sudo shouldn’t ABSOLUTELY NEED
  to look up the host it’s running on?

  
  [*] Originally from http://www.happyassassin.net/2006/02/24/how-to-break-ubuntu-in-thirty-seconds/, 

  If you consider that this is relevant and worth discussing, we can add
  Adam Williamson to the conversation. Otherwise, just mark it as
  invalid and forget it.

  TEST CASE:
   - This only works (i. e. fails) on a system where /usr/sbin/sendmail does NOT exist (standard Ubuntu installation)
   - open a terminal and do "sudo -i" to get a root shell; do "hostname foo"
   - open another terminal, and try "sudo ls". Hardy final will fail with "unable to resolve host foo" and not run the ls.
   - upgrade sudo to the hardy-proposed version and attempt the same. sudo should still complain, but run the ls command.

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