Setup woes

[Derek Broughton]

Bill Vance wrote:

PLEASE don't top post.  How are we supposed to have a conversation?  (maybe
I should just make this my .sig...)

> Ok, I tried, "sudo ls", and got:
> 
>   sudo: /etc/sudoers is mode 0740, should be 0440
> 
> I've allways steered clear of using the number modes, as I've never seen a
> list of which ones are what.

So, just create a file in /tmp and change the mode to both of those.  It's
easy enough to seem what they mean.  otoh, "man chmod" almost certainly
tells you.

> I've noted that none of the /etc files seem 
> to be editable, "out of the box", but I don't know if that's what the
> problem

None of them should be "editable" (by you as a normal user) but they are
generally readable.  Anything to do with passwords and granting system
privilege is not readable, and in this case not even
writeable.  /etc/sudoers is specifically not writeable to enforce using
visudo to edit it.

> is here;  I.e., If it's the same problem, or part of another.  Anyone got
> any clues?

Obviously, that _is_ your problem - why would you not automatically assume
that when you get an error message trying "sudo" that that is the problem
with "sudo"?  I suspect your only option to fix this now is to boot into
single user mode and "chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers", since you can't become root
with an invalid /etc/sudoers.  In future, _never_ try to
change /etc/sudoers except through visudo (because you don't know how to
use 'vi' is not a good enough excuse - visudo will use the editor of your
choice if you set up the editor and editorrc alternatives).
-- 
derek