[sudo-users] (correction) How to use sudo without typing sudo before any command

[David Ledger]

At 08:34 -0400 5/6/09, Justin Alcorn wrote:
>The point of sudo is to make sure you know you're running a privileged
>command, and to log those commands.  To not type 'sudo', you become
>root, but then you lose all the benefits of sudo, including the
>logging.
>
>On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 8:20 AM, Vijay Lad<vijay.k.lad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  Hi All,
>>       I am very new user for sudo, I have install the sudo on my centos &
>>  its working fine. The problem is that, I have to enter sudo before running
>>  any command. Is ther any way where I can enter sudo at start & after that I
>>  can run any command without typing sudo before command?

There must be lots of people using sudo to run individual commands as 
root, but in by experience, across many companies, sudo is mainly 
used in the way Vijay wants. Other uses have been to allow specific 
users to run something as 'oracle' and, 9 years ago, to mount a CD as 
root.

I use the alias
soot='sudo -p "Password: " -H -- /bin/ksh -o vi'
in my own environment, which shows how to do it. Using it this way is 
useful for allowing SysAdmins to work without passing out the root 
password, which remains in a safe for use in emergencies.

(I just copy pasted my alias in there, forgetting that I have a link 
on my PATH called '-ksh' to /bin/ksh, which starts a ksh as a login 
shell).

David


-- 
David Ledger - Freelance Unix Sysadmin in the UK.
HP-UX specialist of hpUG technical user group (www.hpug.org.uk)
david.ledger at ivdcs.co.uk
www.ivdcs.co.uk