Membership in sudo group
 

Hi,

I practically never use the sudo command on a Linux system. Either I work as a normal user. Or I switch to the root account using 'su -' for administrative tasks. In the rare case I have to work on a Ubuntu server, first thing I do is activate the root account.

On a Slackware system, what's the difference between being a member of the sudo group and not being a member? I just experimented a bit, and in either case, a normal user can become root using 'su -'.

Cheers,

Niki

Thinking of it. When a user is created, adduser suggests to add the user to a collection of additional groups:

I'm familiar with the effect of some of these. For example, a user who is not member of the plugdev group can't mount a USB stick or an external hard disk. If someone knows the exact effect of (non-)membership in these groups, I'd be grateful for the information, because I can't seem to find it.

Like you (and I suspect a whole lot of other folk) I don't use sudo in favor of su -. I believe, however, that sudo lets you tailor what users can do without access to the root password; you can limit a user to necessary (maybe) tasks without giving away the keys to the kingdom. It's a question of granting permissions to extremely limited activities rather than being able to edit system files and the like, eh?

Hope this helps some.

Here at work, sudo is used extensively to give people a limited level of administrative access to servers, without the need for divulging the root password.
At home, I use sudo, so that only people in the "wheel" group can use sudo to become root at all (using "sudo -i"). Also, sudo configuration allows me to let mailman create mail aliases on the fly if new a list is being created.

I also limit the use of "su" through definitions in the file "/etc/suauth" (read "man suauth").

Eric

I also use the wheel group to help control who has access to sudo and su as well. Normal users cannot use sudo or su at all unless I make the appropriate entries in sudoers and suauth. or add them to wheel.

Nothing. Unlike Ubuntu, Slackware is sensible enough not to have a 'sudo' group.


There is a commented-out example rule in the /etc/sudoers file:
... basically meaning: anyone in group 'sudo' can do anything, as anyone, anywhere.

IMO, it should stay commented out!

"someone All=(ALL) ALL" and 'sudo -i', really aren't best-practice use of sudo. Canonical really haven't done sudo's reputation much good by misusing it the way they have. And they've done a lot of novice users a disservice by teaching them bad habits.