Execute a command as another user.
Allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user,
as specified in the sudoers file.
Syntax
sudo [ -H ] [-P ] [-S ] [ -b ] command
sudo [ -p prompt ] [ -c class|- ]
[ -a auth_type ] [ -u username|#uid ] command
sudo -V | -h | -l | -L | -v | -k | -K | -s command
Options
-a The -a (authentication type) option causes sudo to use the speci-
fied authentication type when validating the user, as 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 where sudo has been configured with the
--with-bsdauth option.
-b The -b (background) option tells sudo to run the given command in
the background. Note that if you use the -b option you cannot use
shell job control to manipulate the process.
-c The -c (class) option causes sudo to run the specified command with
resources limited by the specified login class. The class argument
can be either a class name as defined in /etc/login.conf, or a sin-
gle '-' character. Specifying a class of - indicates that the com-
mand should be run restricted by the default login capabilities for
the user the command is run as. If the class argument specifies an
existing user class, the command must be run as root, or the sudo
command must be run from a shell that is already root. This option
is only available on systems with BSD login classes where sudo has
been configured with the --with-logincap option.
-h The -h (help) option causes sudo to print a usage message and exit.
-H The -H (HOME) option sets the HOME environment variable to the
homedir of the target user (root by default) as specified in
passwd(5). By default, sudo does not modify HOME.
-k The -k (kill) option to sudo invalidates the user's timestamp by
setting the time on it to the epoch. The next time sudo is run a
password will be required. This option does not require a password
and was added to allow a user to revoke sudo permissions from a
.logout file.
-K The -K (sure kill) option to sudo removes the user's timestamp
entirely. Likewise, this option does not require a password.
-l The -l (list) option will list out the allowed (and forbidden) com-
mands for the user on the current host.
-L The -L (list defaults) option will list out the parameters that may
be set in a Defaults line along with a short description for each.
This option is useful in conjunction with grep(1).
-p The -p (prompt) option allows you to override the default password
prompt and use a custom one. If the password prompt contains the
%u escape, %u will be replaced with the user's login name. Simi-
larly, %h will be replaced with the local hostname.
-P The -P (preserve group vector) option causes sudo to preserve the
user's group vector unaltered. By default, sudo will initialize
the group vector to the list of groups the target user is in. The
real and effective group IDs, however, are still set to match the
target user.
-s The -s (shell) option runs the shell specified by the SHELL envi-
ronment variable if it is set or the shell as specified in
passwd(5).
-S The -S (stdin) option causes sudo to read the password from stan-
dard input instead of the terminal device.
-u The -u (user) option causes sudo to run the specified command as a
user other than root. To specify a uid instead of a username, use
#uid.
-v If given the -v (validate) option, sudo will update the user's
timestamp, prompting for the user's password if necessary. This
extends the sudo timeout for another 5 minutes (or whatever the
timeout is set to in sudoers) but does not run a command.
-V The -V (version) option causes sudo to print the version number and
exit. If the invoking user is already root the -V option will
print out a list of the defaults sudo was compiled with as well as
the machine's local network addresses.
-- The -- flag indicates that sudo should stop processing command line
arguments. It is most useful in conjunction with the -s flag.
Examples
The following examples assume suitable sudoers(5) entries.
Get a file listing of an unreadable directory:
$ sudo ls /usr/local/protected
Run the last command again as root:
$ sudo !!
List the home directory of user yazza on a machine where the
filesystem holding ~yazza is not exported as root:
$ sudo -u yazza ls ~yazza
Edit the index.html file as user www:
$ sudo -u www vi ~www/htdocs/index.html
To shutdown a machine:
$ sudo shutdown -r +15 "quick reboot"
Make a usage listing of the directories in the /home partition.
Note that this runs the commands in a sub-shell to make the cd and file
redirection work.
$ sudo sh -c "cd /home ; du -s * | sort -rn > USAGE"
Notes
By default, sudo requires that users authenticate themselves with a password
(by default this is the user's password, not the root password). Once a user
has been authenticated, a timestamp is updated and the user may then use sudo
without a password for a short period of time (5 minutes unless overridden in
sudoers).
sudo determines who is an authorized user by consulting the file /etc/sudoers. By giving sudo the -v flag a user can update the time stamp without running a command. The password prompt itself will also time out if the user's password is not entered within 0 minutes (unless overridden via sudoers). If a user who is not listed in the sudoers file tries to run a command via sudo, mail is sent to the proper authorities, as defined at configure time or the sudoers file (defaults to root). Note that the mail will not be sent if an unauthorized user tries to run sudo with the -l or -v flags. This allows users to determine for themselves whether or not they are allowed to use sudo. sudo can log both successful and unsuccessful attempts (as well as errors) to syslog(3), a log file, or both. By default sudo will log via syslog(3) but this is changeable at configure time or via the sudoers file.
Please note that 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 will not be logged, nor will sudo's access control affect them. The same is true for commands that offer shell escapes (including most editors). Because of this, care must be taken when giving users access to commands via sudo to verify that the command does not inadvertantly give the user an effective root shell.
Return Values
Upon successful execution of a program, the return value from sudo will simply
be the return value of the program that was executed. Otherwise, sudo quits
with an exit value of 1 if there is a configuration/permission problem or if
sudo cannot execute the given command.
Environment
sudo uses the environment variables: HOME, PATH, SHELL, USER, SUDO_PROMPT,
SUDO_COMMAND, SUDO_USER, SUDO_UID, SUDO_GID and SUDO_PS1.
Files
/etc/sudoers List of who can run what
/var/run/sudo Directory containing timestamps
"If you don't like your reality change it" - Richard Bandler
Related:
sudo man page - Apple.com
login - log into the computer
su - Substitute user identity
stat(2)
sudoers(5)
passwd - Modify a user password
visudo(8)
grep - Search file(s) for lines that match a given pattern
www.sudo.ws - Todd Miller, sudo maintainer
Password generator
