sudo and /etc/sudoers

[Derek Broughton]

Matthew Flaschen wrote:

> Res wrote:
> 
>> users should never be able to run root programs. this might be fine for
>> your lil home 1337 b0x3n, but not fine in the real world.
> 
> That's bull.  There are plenty of cases where it's safe to let users run
>  certain apps as root.  /sbin/ifup is just one obvious example.
> 
Also, sudo is not just for root access.  I'm a DBA - much of my Postgres 
admin has to be done as user postgres - who doesn't actually have a 
password.  So there are two ways in: 
 sudo -u postgres COMMAND
or
 su postgres -c COMMAND

There's no way that somebody whose only admin function is as a DBA should 
need the root password - and equally no good reason to make "postgres" a 
login account.