[OT] sudo, why not su?

MrKnisely mrknisely at mrknisely.is-a-geek.org
Tue Aug 9 23:07:03 UTC 2005


J.Markoll wrote:

> Derek Broughton a écrit :
>
>> Sean Miller wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I don't buy that.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> You don't buy that "su" and "sudo" have different purposes?
>>
>>
>>
>> No, I don't.  As Magnus put it, both are used to elevate privileges.  
>> They
>> have somewhat different effects (and side-effects) but the purpose is 
>> the
>> same.
>>
>>>>> su
>>>>> ----
>>>>> su switches user.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> like sudo -i (or sudo -i -u user)
>>>>
>>>
>>> That's like saying that you can get your dog to meouw... doesn't 
>>> make it
>>> a cat...
>>
>>
>>
>> sudo -i _does_, however, switch user. 
>>
>>>> While the more generic sudo doesn't have a -i option, I think you 
>>>> can get
>>>> there with -s or -c (as long as the /etc/sudoers file permits it)
>>>>
>>>
>>> Right, so our task in life is to make the "dog" behave like a "cat"?
>>> Whatever it takes? I just don't understand the point...
>>
>>
>>
>> No, one of _my_ (very minor) tasks in life is to make every cat owner
>> understand they'd be better off with a dog.  Why use "su", when there is
>> the vastly superior "sudo" which does everything "su" does and then 
>> some?
>>
>>
>>> you
>>> are going to have to work a lot harder than that to persuade me I know
>>> nothing about Unix.
>>
>>
>>
>> There's no need to be insulting.  I disagree with you - I _haven't_ 
>> called
>> you a clueless newbie.  I simply feel that making everybody access root
>> functions with a logged command, which can permit access at a very fine
>> level of granularity can only be a Good Thing.
>
> Hello,
> I find this thread more and more interesting, as it can lead to a very
> large understanding about many aspects of what root priviledges can 
> lead to.
> However, nobody talked yet about the interest of having additionnally
> a Superuser Terminal in the Applications/System menu. And the fact that
> to log in this terminal, the first user password is required. (I call 
> first user the one who installed, and masters his system)
> I think we have truely plenty possibilities.
> What do you think about it ? is this second terminal useful in any way ?
> Otherwise, I think sudo is very good for newbies, and should even 
> natively configured to 0 time before reentering the password. I've 
> also already seen twice some newbie 'special command line' with a 
> '#sudo whatever' and had never seen the same elsewere :)
> J.Markoll.
>
>
The root terminal is just the result of running sudo... well, sort of.  
The command is:

gksudo /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator


gksudo is just a front end for sudo.

Yes, it is useful... though not really.  For a newbie that knows he 
needs root to do something but doesn't know about the sudo command it is 
handy to be able to just go through the menu and find what he/she 
needs.  Several other items in the menu system use the same method.

The fist installed user is not the only password that will work.  You 
can easily edit your sudoers file to allow other users the same permission.

MrKnisely




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