Hello,

The computer I work with is connected to a private network. From time to time, I need to update an application like Mozilla or add packages like texlive's.

Is there a solution to have the sudo privileges only on this computer without risks for the rest of the network, so I can update applications and add small packages without calling for the administrator ?

The part in the configuration file where it often says "ALL=" can be replace by the host name, or an alias for several host names, if the host has the ability to look up its own name in DNS. But that is not needed unless /etc/sudoers is hosted remotely and shared by multiple machines.

As far as the applications go, sudo can be configured to allow use of specific applications, such as apt or apt-get. With care, you can even decide on which parameters are allowed.

Or, wildly,

See Michael W Lucas' talk "sudo: You're Doing It Wrong" in either slide form or video. He'll have a new edition of sudo Mastery out sometime maybe this year, but that won't help at the momement.

Cheers !

Definitely looking forward these news...

My gut reaction is that if you have an administrator, that'd be who to ask this question of. Going around admins can be career-limiting.

It's a lab, our admin is an engineer and has many things to do...

But anyway he can only set it, so you need to ask him. And he will tell you if he could/wanted to do it. (or she...).