SUDO(8) System Manager's Manual SUDO(8)

sudo, sudoedit - execute a command as another user

sudo -h | -K | -k | -V

sudo -v [-ABkNnS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-u user]

sudo -l [-ABkNnS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-U user] [-u user] [command [arg ...]]

sudo [-ABbEHnPS] [-C num] [-D directory] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-R directory] [-T timeout] [-u user] [VAR=value] [-i | -s] [command [arg ...]]

sudoedit [-ABkNnS] [-C num] [-D directory] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-R directory] [-T timeout] [-u user] file ...

sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user, as specified by the security policy. The invoking user's real (not effective) user-ID is used to determine the user name with which to query the security policy.

sudo supports a plugin architecture for security policies, auditing, and input/output logging. Third parties can develop and distribute their own plugins to work seamlessly with the sudo front-end. The default security policy is sudoers, which is configured via the file /private/etc/sudoers, or via LDAP. See the Plugins section for more information.

The security policy determines what privileges, if any, a user has to run sudo. The policy may require that users authenticate themselves with a password or another authentication mechanism. If authentication is required, sudo will exit if the user's password is not entered within a configurable time limit. This limit is policy-specific; the default password prompt timeout for the sudoers security policy is 0 minutes.

Security policies may support credential caching to allow the user to run sudo again for a period of time without requiring authentication. By default, the sudoers policy caches credentials on a per-terminal basis for 5 minutes. See the timestamp_type and timestamp_timeout options in sudoers(5) for more information. By running sudo with the -v option, a user can update the cached credentials without running a command.

On systems where sudo is the primary method of gaining superuser privileges, it is imperative to avoid syntax errors in the security policy configuration files. For the default security policy, sudoers(5), changes to the configuration files should be made using the visudo(8) utility which will ensure that no syntax errors are introduced.

When invoked as sudoedit, the -e option (described below), is implied.

Security policies and audit plugins may log successful and failed attempts to run sudo. If an I/O plugin is configured, the running command's input and output may be logged as well.

The options are as follows:

Normally, if sudo requires a password, it will read it from the user's terminal. If the -A (askpass) option is specified, a (possibly graphical) helper program is executed to read the user's password and output the password to the standard output. If the SUDO_ASKPASS environment variable is set, it specifies the path to the helper program. Otherwise, if sudo.conf(5) contains a line specifying the askpass program, that value will be used. For example: 
    
# Path to askpass helper program
Path askpass /usr/X11R6/bin/ssh-askpass




If no askpass program is available, sudo will exit with an
    error.





  

  
Use the specified BSD authentication type when validating the user,
      if allowed by /etc/login.conf. The system administrator may specify
      a list of sudo-specific authentication methods by adding an
      “auth-sudo” entry in /etc/login.conf. This option is
      only available on systems that support BSD authentication.

  

  
Ring the bell as part of the password prompt when a terminal is present.
      This option has no effect if an askpass program is used.

  

  
Run the given command in the background. It is not possible to use
      shell job control to manipulate background processes started by
      sudo. Most interactive commands will fail to work properly
      in background mode.

  

  
Close all file descriptors greater than or equal to num before
      executing a command. Values less than three are not permitted. By
      default, sudo will close all open file descriptors other than
      standard input, standard output, and standard error when executing a
      command. The security policy may restrict the user's ability to use
      this option. The sudoers policy only permits use of the -C
      option when the administrator has enabled the closefrom_override
      option.

  

  
Run the command with resource limits and scheduling priority of the
      specified login class. The class argument can be either a
      class name as defined in /etc/login.conf, or a single
      ‘-’ character. If class is -, the default
      login class of the target user will be used. Otherwise, the command
      must be run as the superuser (user-ID 0), or sudo must be run from
      a shell that is already running as the superuser. If the command is
      being run as a login shell, additional /etc/login.conf settings,
      such as the umask and environment variables, will be applied, if present.
      This option is only available on systems with BSD login classes.

  

  
Run the command in the specified directory instead of the
      current working directory. The security policy may return an error if the
      user does not have permission to specify the working directory.

  

  
Indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to preserve their
      existing environment variables. The security policy may return an error if
      the user does not have permission to preserve the environment.

  

  
Indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to add the
      comma-separated list of environment variables to those preserved from the
      user's environment. The security policy may return an error if the user
      does not have permission to preserve the environment. This option may be
      specified multiple times.

  

  
Edit one or more files instead of running a command. In lieu
      of a path name, the string "sudoedit" is used when consulting
      the security policy. If the user is authorized by the policy, the
      following steps are taken:







  
1.

  
Temporary copies are made of the files to be edited with the owner set to
      the invoking user.

  
2.

  
The editor specified by the policy is run to edit the temporary files. The
      sudoers policy uses the SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL and EDITOR environment
      variables (in that order). If none of SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR are
      set, the first program listed in the editor sudoers(5) option is
      used.

  
3.

  
If they have been modified, the temporary files are copied back to their
      original location and the temporary versions are removed.








To help prevent the editing of unauthorized files, the following
    restrictions are enforced unless explicitly allowed by the security
  policy:





  
•

  
Symbolic links may not be edited (version 1.8.15 and higher).

  
•

  
Symbolic links along the path to be edited are not followed when the
      parent directory is writable by the invoking user unless that user is root
      (version 1.8.16 and higher).

  
•

  
Files located in a directory that is writable by the invoking user may not
      be edited unless that user is root (version 1.8.16 and higher).






Users are never allowed to edit device special files.


If the specified file does not exist, it will be created. Unlike
    most commands run by sudo, the editor is run with the invoking
    user's environment unmodified. If the temporary file becomes empty after
    editing, the user will be prompted before it is installed. If, for some
    reason, sudo is unable to update a file with its edited version, the
    user will receive a warning and the edited copy will remain in a temporary
    file.





  

  
Run the command with the primary group set to group instead
      of the primary group specified by the target user's password database
      entry. The group may be either a group name or a numeric group-ID
      (GID) prefixed with the ‘#’ character (e.g.,
      ‘#0’ for GID 0). When running a command as a GID,
      many shells require that the ‘#’ be escaped with a backslash
      (‘\’). If no -u option is specified, the
      command will be run as the invoking user. In either case, the
      primary group will be set to group. The sudoers policy
      permits any of the target user's groups to be specified via the -g
      option as long as the -P option is not in use.

  

  
Request that the security policy set the HOME environment variable to the
      home directory specified by the target user's password database entry.
      Depending on the policy, this may be the default behavior.

  

  
Display a short help message to the standard output and exit.

  

  
Run the command on the specified host if the security policy
      plugin supports remote commands. The sudoers plugin does not
      currently support running remote commands. This may also be used in
      conjunction with the -l option to list a user's privileges for the
      remote host.

  

  
Run the shell specified by the target user's password database entry as a
      login shell. This means that login-specific resource files such as
      .profile, .bash_profile, or .login will be read by
      the shell. If a command is specified, it is passed to the shell as
      a simple command using the -c option. The command and
      any args are concatenated, separated by spaces, after escaping each
      character (including white space) with a backslash (‘\’)
      except for alphanumerics, underscores, hyphens, and dollar signs. If no
      command is specified, an interactive shell is executed. sudo
      attempts to change to that user's home directory before running the shell.
      The command is run with an environment similar to the one a user
      would receive at log in. Most shells behave differently when a
      command is specified as compared to an interactive session; consult
      the shell's manual for details. The Command environment section in
      the sudoers(5) manual documents how the -i option affects the
      environment in which a command is run when the sudoers
      policy is in use.

  

  
Similar to the -k option, except that it removes every cached
      credential for the user, regardless of the terminal or parent process ID.
      The next time sudo is run, a password must be entered if the
      security policy requires authentication. It is not possible to use the
      -K option in conjunction with a command or other option.
      This option does not require a password. Not all security policies support
      credential caching.

  

  
When used without a command, invalidates the user's cached
      credentials for the current session. The next time sudo is run in
      the session, a password must be entered if the security policy requires
      authentication. By default, the sudoers policy uses a separate
      record in the credential cache for each terminal (or parent process ID if
      no terminal is present). This prevents the -k option from
      interfering with sudo commands run in a different terminal session.
      See the timestamp_type option in sudoers(5) for more information.
      This option does not require a password, and was added to allow a user to
      revoke sudo permissions from a .logout file.
    
When used in conjunction with a command or an option
        that may require a password, this option will cause sudo to
        ignore the user's cached credentials. As a result, sudo will
        prompt for a password (if one is required by the security policy) and
        will not update the user's cached credentials.

    
Not all security policies support credential caching.

  

  

  
If no command is specified, list the privileges for the invoking
      user (or the user specified by the -U option) on the current
      host. A longer list format is used if this option is specified multiple
      times and the security policy supports a verbose output format.
    
If a command is specified and is permitted by the
        security policy, the fully-qualified path to the command is
        displayed along with any args. If a command is specified
        but not allowed by the policy, sudo will exit with a status value
        of 1.

  

  

  
Do not update the user's cached credentials, even if the user successfully
      authenticates. Unlike the -k flag, existing cached credentials are
      used if they are valid. To detect when the user's cached credentials are
      valid (or when no authentication is required), the following can be
    used:




sudo -Nnv




Not all security policies support credential caching.





  

  
Avoid prompting the user for input of any kind. If a password is required
      for the command to run, sudo will display an error message
      and exit.

  

  
Preserve the invoking user's group vector unaltered. By default, the
      sudoers policy will initialize the group vector to the list of
      groups the target user is a member of. The real and effective group-IDs,
      however, are still set to match the target user.

  

  
Use a custom password prompt with optional escape sequences. The following
      percent (‘%’) escape sequences are supported by the
      sudoers policy:









  
%H

  
expanded to the host name including the domain name (only if the machine's
      host name is fully qualified or the fqdn option is set in
      sudoers(5))

  
%h

  
expanded to the local host name without the domain name

  
%p

  
expanded to the name of the user whose password is being requested
      (respects the rootpw, targetpw, and runaspw flags in
      sudoers(5))

  
%U

  
expanded to the login name of the user the command will be run as
      (defaults to root unless the -u option is also specified)

  
%u

  
expanded to the invoking user's login name

  
%%

  
two consecutive ‘%’ characters are collapsed into a single
      ‘%’ character




The custom prompt will override the default prompt specified by
    either the security policy or the SUDO_PROMPT environment variable. On
    systems that use PAM, the custom prompt will also override the prompt
    specified by a PAM module unless the passprompt_override flag is
    disabled in sudoers.





  

  
Change to the specified root directory (see chroot(8)) before
      running the command. The security policy may return an error if the
      user does not have permission to specify the root directory.

  

  
Run the command with an SELinux security context that includes the
      specified role.

  

  
Write the prompt to the standard error and read the password from the
      standard input instead of using the terminal device.

  

  
Run the shell specified by the SHELL environment variable if it is set or
      the shell specified by the invoking user's password database entry. If a
      command is specified, it is passed to the shell as a simple command
      using the -c option. The command and any args are
      concatenated, separated by spaces, after escaping each character
      (including white space) with a backslash (‘\’) except for
      alphanumerics, underscores, hyphens, and dollar signs. If no
      command is specified, an interactive shell is executed. Most shells
      behave differently when a command is specified as compared to an
      interactive session; consult the shell's manual for details.

  

  
Run the command with an SELinux security context that includes the
      specified type. If no type is specified, the default type is
      derived from the role.

  

  
Used in conjunction with the -l option to list the privileges for
      user instead of for the invoking user. The security policy may
      restrict listing other users' privileges. When using the sudoers
      policy, the -U option is restricted to the root user and users with
      either the “list” priviege for the specified user or
      the ability to run any command as root or user on the
      current host.

  

  
Used to set a timeout for the command. If the timeout expires
      before the command has exited, the command will be
      terminated. The security policy may restrict the user's ability to set
      timeouts. The sudoers policy requires that user-specified timeouts
      be explicitly enabled.

  

  
Run the command as a user other than the default target user
      (usually root). The user may be either a user name or a
      numeric user-ID (UID) prefixed with the ‘#’ character (e.g.,
      ‘#0’ for UID 0). When running commands as a UID, many
      shells require that the ‘#’ be escaped with a backslash
      (‘\’). Some security policies may restrict UIDs to those
      listed in the password database. The sudoers policy allows UIDs
      that are not in the password database as long as the targetpw
      option is not set. Other security policies may not support this.

  

  
Print the sudo version string as well as the version string of any
      configured plugins. If the invoking user is already root, the -V
      option will display the options passed to configure when sudo was
      built; plugins may display additional information such as default
    options.

  

  
Update the user's cached credentials, authenticating the user if
      necessary. For the sudoers plugin, this extends the sudo
      timeout for another 5 minutes by default, but does not run a
      command. Not all security policies support cached credentials.

  
--

  
The -- is used to delimit the end of the sudo options.
      Subsequent options are passed to the command.




Options that take a value may only be specified once unless
    otherwise indicated in the description. This is to help guard against
    problems caused by poorly written scripts that invoke sudo with
    user-controlled input.


Environment variables to be set for the command may also be
    passed as options to sudo in the form VAR=value, for
    example LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/pkg/lib. Environment variables may
    be subject to restrictions imposed by the security policy plugin. The
    sudoers policy subjects environment variables passed as options to
    the same restrictions as existing environment variables with one important
    difference. If the setenv option is set in sudoers, the
    command to be run has the SETENV tag set or the command
    matched is ALL, the user may set variables that would otherwise be
    forbidden. See sudoers(5) for more information.








When sudo executes a command, the security policy
    specifies the execution environment for the command. Typically, the
    real and effective user and group and IDs are set to match those of the
    target user, as specified in the password database, and the group vector is
    initialized based on the group database (unless the -P option was
    specified).


The following parameters may be specified by security policy:



  
•

  
real and effective user-ID

  
•

  
real and effective group-ID

  
•

  
supplementary group-IDs

  
•

  
the environment list

  
•

  
current working directory

  
•

  
file creation mode mask (umask)

  
•

  
scheduling priority (aka nice value)








There are two distinct ways sudo can run a
  command.


If an I/O logging plugin is configured to log terminal I/O, or if
    the security policy explicitly requests it, a new pseudo-terminal
    (“pty”) is allocated and fork(2) is used to create a second
    sudo process, referred to as the monitor. The monitor
    creates a new terminal session with itself as the leader and the pty as its
    controlling terminal, calls fork(2) again, sets up the execution environment
    as described above, and then uses the execve(2) system call to run the
    command in the child process. The monitor exists to relay job
    control signals between the user's terminal and the pty the command
    is being run in. This makes it possible to suspend and resume the
    command normally. Without the monitor, the command
    would be in what POSIX terms an “orphaned process group” and
    it would not receive any job control signals from the kernel. When the
    command exits or is terminated by a signal, the monitor passes
    the command's exit status to the main sudo process and exits.
    After receiving the command's exit status, the main sudo
    process passes the command's exit status to the security policy's
    close function, as well as the close function of any configured audit
    plugin, and exits.


If no pty is used, sudo calls fork(2), sets up the
    execution environment as described above, and uses the execve(2) system call
    to run the command in the child process. The main sudo process
    waits until the command has completed, then passes the
    command's exit status to the security policy's close function, as
    well as the close function of any configured audit plugins, and exits. As a
    special case, if the policy plugin does not define a close function,
    sudo will execute the command directly instead of calling
    fork(2) first. The sudoers policy plugin will only define a close
    function when I/O logging is enabled, a pty is required, an SELinux role is
    specified, the command has an associated timeout, or the
    pam_session or pam_setcred options are enabled. Both
    pam_session and pam_setcred are enabled by default on systems
    using PAM.


On systems that use PAM, the security policy's close function is
    responsible for closing the PAM session. It may also log the
    command's exit status.








When the command is run as a child of the sudo
    process, sudo will relay signals it receives to the command.
    The SIGINT and SIGQUIT signals are only relayed when the command is
    being run in a new pty or when the signal was sent by a user process, not
    the kernel. This prevents the command from receiving SIGINT twice
    each time the user enters control-C. Some signals, such as SIGSTOP and
    SIGKILL, cannot be caught and thus will not be relayed to the
    command. As a general rule, SIGTSTP should be used instead of SIGSTOP
    when you wish to suspend a command being run by sudo.


As a special case, sudo will not relay signals that were
    sent by the command it is running. This prevents the command
    from accidentally killing itself. On some systems, the reboot(8) utility
    sends SIGTERM to all non-system processes other than itself before rebooting
    the system. This prevents sudo from relaying the SIGTERM signal it
    received back to reboot(8), which might then exit before the system was
    actually rebooted, leaving it in a half-dead state similar to single user
    mode. Note, however, that this check only applies to the command run
    by sudo and not any other processes that the command may
    create. As a result, running a script that calls reboot(8) or shutdown(8)
    via sudo may cause the system to end up in this undefined state
    unless the reboot(8) or shutdown(8) are run using the exec() family
    of functions instead of system() (which interposes a shell between
    the command and the calling process).








Plugins may be specified via Plugin directives in the
    sudo.conf(5) file. They may be loaded as dynamic shared objects (on systems
    that support them), or compiled directly into the sudo binary. If no
    sudo.conf(5) file is present, or if it doesn't contain any Plugin
    lines, sudo will use sudoers(5) for the policy, auditing, and I/O
    logging plugins. See the sudo.conf(5) manual for details of the
    /private/etc/sudo.conf file and the sudo_plugin(5) manual for more
    information about the sudo plugin architecture.










Upon successful execution of a command, the exit status
    from sudo will be the exit status of the program that was executed.
    If the command terminated due to receipt of a signal, sudo
    will send itself the same signal that terminated the command.


If the -l option was specified without a command,
    sudo will exit with a value of 0 if the user is allowed to run
    sudo and they authenticated successfully (as required by the security
    policy). If a command is specified with the -l option, the
    exit value will only be 0 if the command is permitted by the security
    policy, otherwise it will be 1.


If there is an authentication failure, a configuration/permission
    problem, or if the given command cannot be executed, sudo
    exits with a value of 1. In the latter case, the error string is printed to
    the standard error. If sudo cannot stat(2) one or more entries in the
    user's PATH, an error is printed to the standard error. (If the directory
    does not exist or if it is not really a directory, the entry is ignored and
    no error is printed.) This should not happen under normal circumstances. The
    most common reason for stat(2) to return “permission denied”
    is if you are running an automounter and one of the directories in your PATH
    is on a machine that is currently unreachable.








sudo tries to be safe when executing external
    commands.


To prevent command spoofing, sudo checks "." and
    "" (both denoting current directory) last when searching for a
    command in the user's PATH (if one or both are in the PATH).
    Depending on the security policy, the user's PATH environment variable may
    be modified, replaced, or passed unchanged to the program that sudo
    executes.


Users should never be granted sudo privileges to
    execute files that are writable by the user or that reside in a directory
    that is writable by the user. If the user can modify or replace the
    command there is no way to limit what additional commands they
    can run.


By default, sudo will only log the command it
    explicitly runs. If a user runs a command such as ‘sudo
    su’ or ‘sudo sh’, subsequent commands run from
    that shell are not subject to sudo's security policy. The same is
    true for commands that offer shell escapes (including most editors).
    If I/O logging is enabled, subsequent commands will have their input
    and/or output logged, but there will not be traditional logs for those
    commands. Because of this, care must be taken when giving users
    access to commands via sudo to verify that the command
    does not inadvertently give the user an effective root shell. For
    information on ways to address this, see the Preventing shell escapes
    section in sudoers(5).


To prevent the disclosure of potentially sensitive information,
    sudo disables core dumps by default while it is executing (they are
    re-enabled for the command that is run). This historical practice
    dates from a time when most operating systems allowed set-user-ID processes
    to dump core by default. To aid in debugging sudo crashes, you may
    wish to re-enable core dumps by setting “disable_coredump” to
    false in the sudo.conf(5) file as follows:






Set disable_coredump false






See the sudo.conf(5) manual for more information.








sudo utilizes the following environment variables. The
    security policy has control over the actual content of the command's
    environment.



  

  
Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode if neither SUDO_EDITOR
      nor VISUAL is set.

  

  
Set to the mail spool of the target user when the -i option is
      specified, or when env_reset is enabled in sudoers (unless
      MAIL is present in the env_keep list).

  

  
Set to the home directory of the target user when the -i or
      -H options are specified, when the -s option is specified
      and set_home is set in sudoers, when always_set_home
      is enabled in sudoers, or when env_reset is enabled in
      sudoers and HOME is not present in the env_keep list.

  

  
Set to the login name of the target user when the -i option is
      specified, when the set_logname option is enabled in
      sudoers, or when the env_reset option is enabled in
      sudoers (unless LOGNAME is present in the env_keep
    list).

  

  
May be overridden by the security policy.

  

  
Used to determine shell to run with -s option.

  

  
Specifies the path to a helper program used to read the password if no
      terminal is available or if the -A option is specified.

  

  
Set to the command run by sudo, including any args. The
      args are truncated at 4096 characters to prevent a potential
      execution error.

  

  
Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode.

  

  
Set to the group-ID of the user who invoked sudo.

  

  
Used as the default password prompt unless the -p option was
      specified.

  

  
If set, PS1 will be set to its value for the program being run.

  

  
Set to the user-ID of the user who invoked sudo.

  

  
Set to the login name of the user who invoked sudo.

  

  
Set to the same value as LOGNAME, described above.

  

  
Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode if SUDO_EDITOR is not
      set.











  
/private/etc/sudo.conf

  
sudo front-end configuration










The following examples assume a properly configured security
    policy.


To get a file listing of an unreadable directory:






$ sudo ls /usr/local/protected






To list the home directory of user yaz on a machine where the file
    system holding ~yaz is not exported as root:






$ sudo -u yaz ls ~yaz






To edit the index.html file as user www:






$ sudoedit -u www ~www/htdocs/index.html






To view system logs only accessible to root and users in the adm
    group:






$ sudo -g adm more /var/log/syslog






To run an editor as jim with a different primary group:






$ sudoedit -u jim -g audio ~jim/sound.txt






To shut down a machine:






$ sudo shutdown -r +15 "quick reboot"






To make a usage listing of the directories in the /home partition.
    The commands are run in a sub-shell to allow the ‘cd’
    command and file redirection to work.






$ sudo sh -c "cd /home ; du -s * | sort -rn > USAGE"












Error messages produced by sudo include:



  

  
By default, sudoedit does not permit editing a file when any of the
      parent directories are writable by the invoking user. This avoids a race
      condition that could allow the user to overwrite an arbitrary file. See
      the sudoedit_checkdir option in sudoers(5) for more
    information.

  

  
By default, sudoedit does not follow symbolic links when opening
      files. See the sudoedit_follow option in sudoers(5) for more
      information.

  

  
sudo was not run with root privileges. The sudo binary must
      be owned by the root user and have the set-user-ID bit set. Also, it must
      not be located on a file system mounted with the ‘nosuid’
      option or on an NFS file system that maps uid 0 to an unprivileged
    uid.

  

  
sudo was not run with root privileges. The sudo binary has
      the proper owner and permissions but it still did not run with root
      privileges. The most common reason for this is that the file system the
      sudo binary is located on is mounted with the
      ‘nosuid’ option or it is an NFS file system that maps uid 0
      to an unprivileged uid.

  

  
An error occurred while loading or initializing the plugins specified in
      sudo.conf(5).

  

  
One or more environment variable names specified via the -E option
      contained an equal sign (‘=’). The arguments to the
      -E option should be environment variable names without an
      associated value.

  

  
When sudo tried to read the password, it did not receive any
      characters. This may happen if no terminal is available (or the -S
      option is specified) and the standard input has been redirected from
      /dev/null.

  

  
sudo needs to read the password but there is no mechanism available
      for it to do so. A terminal is not present to read the password from,
      sudo has not been configured to read from the standard input, the
      -S option was not used, and no askpass helper has been specified
      either via the sudo.conf(5) file or the SUDO_ASKPASS environment
    variable.

  

  
sudoedit was unable to find a usable temporary directory in which
      to store its intermediate files.

  

  
sudo was run by a process that has the Linux “no new
      privileges” flag is set. This causes the set-user-ID bit to be
      ignored when running an executable, which will prevent sudo from
      functioning. The most likely cause for this is running sudo within
      a container that sets this flag. Check the documentation to see if it is
      possible to configure the container such that the flag is not set.

  

  
sudo was not run with root privileges. The sudo binary does
      not have the correct owner or permissions. It must be owned by the root
      user and have the set-user-ID bit set.

  

  
It is only possible to run sudoedit on systems that support setting
      the effective user-ID.

  

  
The user did not enter a password before the password timeout (5 minutes
      by default) expired.

  

  
Your user-ID does not appear in the system passwd database.

  

  
It is only possible to specify environment variables when running a
      command. When editing a file, the editor is run with the user's
      environment unmodified.










su(1), stat(2), login_cap(3), passwd(5), sudo.conf(5),
    sudo_plugin(5), sudoers(5), sudoers_timestamp(5), sudoreplay(8),
  visudo(8)








See the HISTORY.md file in the sudo distribution
    (https://www.sudo.ws/about/history/) for a brief history of sudo.








Many people have worked on sudo over the years; this
    version consists of code written primarily by:




Todd C. Miller


See the CONTRIBUTORS.md file in the sudo distribution
    (https://www.sudo.ws/about/contributors/) for an exhaustive list of people
    who have contributed to sudo.








There is no easy way to prevent a user from gaining a root shell
    if that user is allowed to run arbitrary commands via sudo.
    Also, many programs (such as editors) allow the user to run commands
    via shell escapes, thus avoiding sudo's checks. However, on most
    systems it is possible to prevent shell escapes with the sudoers(5) plugin's
    noexec functionality.


It is not meaningful to run the ‘cd’ command
    directly via sudo, e.g.,






$ sudo cd /usr/local/protected






since when the command exits the parent process (your
    shell) will still be the same. The -D option can be used to run a
    command in a specific directory.


Running shell scripts via sudo can expose the same kernel
    bugs that make set-user-ID shell scripts unsafe on some operating systems
    (if your OS has a /dev/fd/ directory, set-user-ID shell scripts are
    generally safe).








If you believe you have found a bug in sudo, you can submit
    a bug report at https://bugzilla.sudo.ws/








Limited free support is available via the sudo-users mailing list,
    see https://www.sudo.ws/mailman/listinfo/sudo-users to subscribe or search
    the archives.








sudo is provided “AS IS” and any express or
    implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of
    merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. See the
    LICENSE.md file distributed with sudo or
    https://www.sudo.ws/about/license/ for complete details.







  

    January 16, 2023
    Sudo 1.9.13p2