How to handle installation of new software.

rsmccain · 02-20-2006, 04:54 PM

I work on the server team for a company. We maintain the OS and hardware of all of our servers.

I am wondering how most of you Linux admins allow members of an application team to install software. Right now, we are doing it for them, or assigning a temporary root password, but there must be an easier way. Do more of the mature applications allow one to install it without being root? ie: user = apache for Apache??

Thanks,
Ryan

d3funct · 02-20-2006, 05:22 PM

Look into the 'sudo' program(application?). This will have you create a file to define specific users to perform whatever commands/programs/tasks you specify and they run effectively as root as long as they can successfully identify themselves to the system. But they can only run the jobs you say, much more secure than changing the root password temporarily. If it's a Linux distro 'sudo' should be installed by default. Type "man sudo" for specifications.

rsmccain · 02-20-2006, 06:52 PM

We looked into sudo, however, it became somewhat of a pain. Oh well, i guess there is not easy way.

THANKS for the tip!