I see in the web that there are several ways to set up /etc/sudoers to allow myself to execute commands as if I were root.
1) add myself to wheel group and setup wheel to ALL by removing the # from that linel
2) add myself as xxxx ALL=(ALL) ALL beneath root ALL=(ALL) ALL.
Can I do it this way so as not to have to respond with password:
xxxx ALL=(ALL) nopasswd:ALL
3) add myself for specific commands in /etc/sudoers
4) or make myself a member of sudo group.
Obviously, #3 is the safest but for myself wouldn't #2 be acceptable. Since this is a single user system I am presuming the nopasswd mode should be OK.
Becoming a member of sudo or wheel group does NOT seem to be the most secure.
What if I were to have a copy of sudoers which had no users and copied that to /etc/sudoers when on the internet and another to copy to sudoers when off the web. If these 2 files were made very secure would this be considered a secure means?
Do I have the approaches correct as I seen several to employ and after an extremely long time in computer science this is the second time I have had to fiddled with sudo.

While the second option is a viable option for a single user system, the NOPASSWD option is not. This is basically the same as logging in as root which is a bad idea if your system is exposed to the net.

I personally use su for administering the system, with a few selected commands that I use very often, setup with sudo without password.

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I normally do your 2nd method but I leave nopasswd option off. If you are working in command prompt and once you issue the command "sudo <yourcommands>" you won't have to keep reentering your password over and over. Its a little safer and I would go with that route.

waddles,
Here is a good website with lots of good information.
http://gnu-linux-slackware.blogspot....oers-file.html

Thanks.

Larry

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I think that is simple and securely to use the 3th variant. But I don't have a big set of the commands, mount and umount only... For administrative tasks I use 'su -' and 'su -c "command -arguments"'

Ditto but I also include "shutdown" so that I can shutdown the PC from the fluxbox menu as a user (NOPASSWD: of course).

I see "solved" but I wanted to say I just add; I myself use wheel with no pass. It's still not the same as root.

Care to explain why this is not the same as root?

It does not have all the same commands. You can try to do a lot of things with sudo and it will say "command not found".

That's a problem with the PATH variable (try adding "/sbin:/usr/sbin" to your PATH or just be explicit when referencing commands).

Ah not a problem for me, just an observation. I still use # frequently.