sudo: what is the point?

[Arnold Maestre]

On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 10:53:25 +0200, Duncan Anderson
<duncangareth at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Arnold Maestre wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> >Among others, with sudo the user only needs to remember one password,
> >his own: there is bo additionnal "root" password. Additionally, sudo
> >allows you to precisely tune which user can do what on which machine,
> >without handing out the keys to your systems.
> >
> >
> Thanks Arnold
> 
> That makes sense to me. So "sudo" allows one to allow specific users to
> execute privileged commands without having to know the root password?

Exactly. From the man page: "sudo allows a permitted user to execute a
command as the superuser or another user, as specified in the sudoers
file." Authorizations are handled in /etc/sudoers, and can be tuned
very precisely. For example, you could allow a certain user, or
category, to run a command with certain parameters, say, you coul
allow junior admins to install packages (apt-get install) but not to
remove packages (apt-get remove). You can also allow certain commands
to be run without passwords.

For more info:
man sudo
man sudoers




-- 
Arnold Maestre