Configuring sudo.conf for sudoers sudo consults the sudo.conf(5) file to determine which policy and I/O logging plugins to load. If no sudo.conf(5) file is present, or if it contains no Plugin lines, sudoers will be used for policy decisions and I/O logging. To explicitly configure sudo.conf(5)
to use the sudoers plugin, the following configuration can be used.
Plugin sudoers_audit sudoers.so
Plugin sudoers_policy sudoers.so
Plugin sudoers_io sudoers.so
it is possible to specify optional arguments to the sudoers plugin in the sudo.conf(5) file. Plugin
arguments, if any, should be listed after the path to the plugin (i.e., after sudoers.so). The arguments are only effective for
the plugin that opens (and parses) the sudoers file.
this is the sudoers_audit plugin.
Multiple arguments may be specified, separated by white space. For example:
Plugin sudoers_audit sudoers.so sudoers_mode=0400 error_recovery=false
The following plugin arguments
error_recovery=bool
The error_recovery argument can be used to control whether sudoers should attempt to recover from syntax errors in the
sudoers file. If set to true (the default), sudoers will try to recover from a syntax error by discarding the portion of
the line that contains the error until the end of the line. A value of false will disable error recovery.
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users authenticate themselves before they can use sudo unless:
The sudoers file is composed of two types of entries: aliases (basically variables) and user specifications (which specify who may
run what).
When multiple entries match for a user, they are applied in order. Where there are multiple matches, the last match is used (which
is not necessarily the most specific match).
The sudoers file grammar will be described below in Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF). Don't despair if you are unfamiliar with
EBNF; it is fairly simple, and the definitions below are annotated.
Quick guide to EBNF
EBNF is a concise and exact way of describing the grammar of a language. Each EBNF definition is made up of production rules.
E.g.,
symbol ::= definition | alternate1 | alternate2 ...
Each production rule references others and thus makes up a grammar for the language. EBNF also contains the following operators,
which many readers will recognize from regular expressions. Do not, however, confuse them with "wildcard" characters, which have
different meanings.
? optional. That is, it may appear once or not at all.
* zero or more times.
+ appear one or more times.
Parentheses may be used to group symbols together. For clarity, we will use single quotes ('') to designate what is a verbatim
character string (as opposed to a symbol name).
There are four kinds of aliases: User_Alias, Runas_Alias, Host_Alias and Cmnd_Alias. Cmd_Alias may be
used in place of Cmnd_Alias
Alias ::= 'User_Alias' User_Alias_Spec (':' User_Alias_Spec)* |
'Runas_Alias' Runas_Alias_Spec (':' Runas_Alias_Spec)* |
'Host_Alias' Host_Alias_Spec (':' Host_Alias_Spec)* |
'Cmnd_Alias' Cmnd_Alias_Spec (':' Cmnd_Alias_Spec)* |
'Cmd_Alias' Cmnd_Alias_Spec (':' Cmnd_Alias_Spec)*
User_Alias ::= NAME
User_Alias_Spec ::= User_Alias '=' User_List
Runas_Alias ::= NAME
Runas_Alias_Spec ::= Runas_Alias '=' Runas_List
Host_Alias ::= NAME
Host_Alias_Spec ::= Host_Alias '=' Host_List
Cmnd_Alias ::= NAME
Cmnd_Alias_Spec ::= Cmnd_Alias '=' Cmnd_List
NAME ::= [A-Z]([A-Z][0-9]_)*
Each alias definition is of the form
Alias_Type NAME = item1, item2, ...
where Alias_Type is one of User_Alias, Runas_Alias, Host_Alias, or Cmnd_Alias. A NAME is a string of uppercase letters, numbers,
and underscore characters (`_'). A NAME must start with an uppercase letter. It is possible to put several alias definitions of
the same type on a single line, joined by a colon (`:'). E.g.,
Alias_Type NAME = item1, item2, item3 : NAME = item4, item5
It is a syntax error to redefine an existing alias. It is possible to use the same name for aliases of different types, but this
is not recommended.
The definitions of what constitutes a valid alias member follow.
User_List ::= User |
User ',' User_List
User ::= '!'* user name |
'!'* #uid |
'!'* %group |
'!'* %#gid |
'!'* +netgroup |
'!'* %:nonunix_group |
'!'* %:#nonunix_gid |
'!'* User_Alias
A User_List is made up of one or more user names, user-IDs (prefixed with `#'), system group names and IDs (prefixed with `%' and
`%#' respectively), netgroups (prefixed with `+'), non-Unix group names and IDs (prefixed with `%:' and `%:#' respectively) and
User_Aliases. Each list item may be prefixed with zero or more `!' operators. An odd number of `!' operators negate the value of
the item; an even number just cancel each other out. User netgroups are matched using the user and domain members only; the host
member is not used when matching.
A user name, uid, group, gid, netgroup, nonunix_group or nonunix_gid may be enclosed in double quotes to avoid the need for
escaping special characters. Alternately, special characters may be specified in escaped hex mode, e.g., \x20 for space. When
using double quotes, any prefix characters must be included inside the quotes.
The actual nonunix_group and nonunix_gid syntax depends on the underlying group provider plugin. For instance, the QAS AD plugin
supports the following formats:
o Group in the same domain: "%:Group Name"
o Group in any domain: "%:Group Name@FULLY.QUALIFIED.DOMAIN"
o Group SID: "%:S-1-2-34-5678901234-5678901234-5678901234-567"
See GROUP PROVIDER PLUGINS for more information.
Note that quotes around group names are optional. Unquoted strings must use a backslash (`\') to escape spaces and special
characters. See Other special characters and reserved words for a list of characters that need to be escaped.
Runas_List ::= Runas_Member |
Runas_Member ',' Runas_List
Runas_Member ::= '!'* user name |
'!'* #uid |
'!'* %group |
'!'* %#gid |
'!'* %:nonunix_group |
'!'* %:#nonunix_gid |
'!'* +netgroup |
'!'* Runas_Alias
A Runas_List is similar to a User_List except that instead of User_Aliases it can contain Runas_Aliases. Note that user names and
groups are matched as strings. In other words, two users (groups) with the same user (group) ID are considered to be distinct. If
you wish to match all user names with the same user-ID (e.g., root and toor), you can use a user-ID instead of a name (#0 in the
example given). Note that the user-ID or group-ID specified in a Runas_Member need not be listed in the password or group
database.
Host_List ::= Host |
Host ',' Host_List
Host ::= '!'* host name |
'!'* ip_addr |
'!'* network(/netmask)? |
'!'* +netgroup |
'!'* Host_Alias
A Host_List is made up of one or more host names, IP addresses, network numbers, netgroups (prefixed with `+') and other aliases.
Again, the value of an item may be negated with the `!' operator. Host netgroups are matched using the host (both qualified and
unqualified) and domain members only; the user member is not used when matching. If you specify a network number without a
netmask, sudo will query each of the local host's network interfaces and, if the network number corresponds to one of the hosts's
network interfaces, will use the netmask of that interface. The netmask may be specified either in standard IP address notation
(e.g., 255.255.255.0 or ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff::), or CIDR notation (number of bits, e.g., 24 or 64). A host name may include shell-
style wildcards (see the Wildcards section below), but unless the host name command on your machine returns the fully qualified
host name, you'll need to use the fqdn flag for wildcards to be useful. Note that sudo only inspects actual network interfaces;
this means that IP address 127.0.0.1 (localhost) will never match. Also, the host name "localhost" will only match if that is the
actual host name, which is usually only the case for non-networked systems.
digest ::= [A-Fa-f0-9]+ |
[A-Za-z0-9\+/=]+
Digest_Spec ::= "sha224" ':' digest |
"sha256" ':' digest |
"sha384" ':' digest |
"sha512" ':' digest
Digest_List ::= Digest_Spec |
Digest_Spec ',' Digest_List
Cmnd_List ::= Cmnd |
Cmnd ',' Cmnd_List
command name ::= file name |
file name args |
file name '""'
Edit_Spec ::= "sudoedit" file name+
Cmnd ::= Digest_List? '!'* command name |
'!'* directory |
'!'* Edit_Spec |
'!'* Cmnd_Alias
A Cmnd_List is a list of one or more command names, directories, and other aliases. A command name is a fully qualified file name
which may include shell-style wildcards (see the Wildcards section below). A simple file name allows the user to run the command
with any arguments they wish. However, you may also specify command line arguments (including wildcards). Alternately, you can
specify "" to indicate that the command may only be run without command line arguments. A directory is a fully qualified path name
ending in a `/'. When you specify a directory in a Cmnd_List, the user will be able to run any file within that directory (but not
in any sub-directories therein).
If a Cmnd has associated command line arguments, then the arguments in the Cmnd must match exactly those given by the user on the
command line (or match the wildcards if there are any). Note that the following characters must be escaped with a `\' if they are
used in command arguments: `,', `:', `=', `\'. The built-in command "sudoedit" is used to permit a user to run sudo with the -e
option (or as sudoedit). It may take command line arguments just as a normal command does. Note that "sudoedit" is a command
built into sudo itself and must be specified in the sudoers file without a leading path. If a leading path is present, for example
/usr/bin/sudoedit, the path name will be silently converted to "sudoedit". A fully-qualified path for sudoedit is treated as an
error by visudo.
A command name may be preceded by a Digest_List, a comma-separated list of one or more Digest_Spec entries. If a Digest_List is
present, the command will only match successfully if it can be verified using one of the SHA-2 digests in the list. Starting with
version 1.9.0, the ALL reserved word can be used in conjunction with a Digest_List. The following digest formats are supported:
sha224, sha256, sha384 and sha512. The string may be specified in either hex or base64 format (base64 is more compact). There are
several utilities capable of generating SHA-2 digests in hex format such as openssl, shasum, sha224sum, sha256sum, sha384sum,
sha512sum.
For example, using openssl:
$ openssl dgst -sha224 /bin/ls
SHA224(/bin/ls)= 118187da8364d490b4a7debbf483004e8f3e053ec954309de2c41a25
It is also possible to use openssl to generate base64 output:
$ openssl dgst -binary -sha224 /bin/ls | openssl base64
EYGH2oNk1JC0p9679IMATo8+BT7JVDCd4sQaJQ==
Warning, if the user has write access to the command itself (directly or via a sudo command), it may be possible for the user to
replace the command after the digest check has been performed but before the command is executed. A similar race condition exists
on systems that lack the fexecve(2) system call when the directory in which the command is located is writable by the user. See
the description of the fdexec setting for more information on how sudo executes commands that have an associated digest.
Command digests are only supported by version 1.8.7 or higher.
Defaults
Certain configuration options may be changed from their default values at run-time via one or more Default_Entry lines. These may
affect all users on any host, all users on a specific host, a specific user, a specific command, or commands being run as a
specific user. Note that per-command entries may not include command line arguments. If you need to specify arguments, define a
Cmnd_Alias and reference that instead.
Default_Type ::= 'Defaults' |
'Defaults' '@' Host_List |
'Defaults' ':' User_List |
'Defaults' '!' Cmnd_List |
'Defaults' '>' Runas_List
Default_Entry ::= Default_Type Parameter_List
Parameter_List ::= Parameter |
Parameter ',' Parameter_List
Parameter ::= Parameter '=' Value |
Parameter '+=' Value |
Parameter '-=' Value |
'!'* Parameter
Parameters may be flags, integer values, strings, or lists. Flags are implicitly boolean and can be turned off via the `!'
operator. Some integer, string and list parameters may also be used in a boolean context to disable them. Values may be enclosed
in double quotes ("") when they contain multiple words. Special characters may be escaped with a backslash (`\').
Lists have two additional assignment operators, += and -=. These operators are used to add to and delete from a list respectively.
It is not an error to use the -= operator to remove an element that does not exist in a list.
Defaults entries are parsed in the following order: generic, host, user and runas Defaults first, then command defaults. If there
are multiple Defaults settings of the same type, the last matching setting is used. The following Defaults settings are parsed
before all others since they may affect subsequent entries: fqdn, group_plugin, runas_default, sudoers_locale.
See SUDOERS OPTIONS for a list of supported Defaults parameters.
User specification
User_Spec ::= User_List Host_List '=' Cmnd_Spec_List \
(':' Host_List '=' Cmnd_Spec_List)*
Cmnd_Spec_List ::= Cmnd_Spec |
Cmnd_Spec ',' Cmnd_Spec_List
Cmnd_Spec ::= Runas_Spec? Option_Spec* Tag_Spec* Cmnd
Runas_Spec ::= '(' Runas_List? (':' Runas_List)? ')'
Option_Spec ::= (Date_Spec | Timeout_Spec)
Date_Spec ::= ('NOTBEFORE=timestamp' | 'NOTAFTER=timestamp')
Timeout_Spec ::= 'TIMEOUT=timeout'
Chdir_Spec ::= 'CWD=directory'
Chroot_Spec ::= 'CHROOT=directory'
Tag_Spec ::= ('EXEC:' | 'NOEXEC:' | 'FOLLOW:' | 'NOFOLLOW' |
'LOG_INPUT:' | 'NOLOG_INPUT:' | 'LOG_OUTPUT:' |
'NOLOG_OUTPUT:' | 'MAIL:' | 'NOMAIL:' | 'PASSWD:' |
'NOPASSWD:' | 'SETENV:' | 'NOSETENV:')
A user specification determines which commands a user may run (and as what user) on specified hosts. By default, commands are run
as root, but this can be changed on a per-command basis.
The basic structure of a user specification is "who where = (as_whom) what". Let's break that down into its constituent parts:
Runas_Spec
A Runas_Spec determines the user and/or the group that a command may be run as. A fully-specified Runas_Spec consists of two
Runas_Lists (as defined above) separated by a colon (`:') and enclosed in a set of parentheses. The first Runas_List indicates
which users the command may be run as via the -u option. The second defines a list of groups that can be specified via the -g
option in addition to any of the target user's groups. If both Runas_Lists are specified, the command may be run with any
combination of users and groups listed in their respective Runas_Lists. If only the first is specified, the command may be run as
any user in the list but no -g option may be specified. If the first Runas_List is empty but the second is specified, the command
may be run as the invoking user with the group set to any listed in the Runas_List. If both Runas_Lists are empty, the command may
only be run as the invoking user. If no Runas_Spec is specified the command may be run as root and no group may be specified.
A Runas_Spec sets the default for the commands that follow it. What this means is that for the entry:
dgb boulder = (operator) /bin/ls, /bin/kill, /usr/bin/lprm
The user dgb may run /bin/ls, /bin/kill, and /usr/bin/lprm on the host boulder--but only as operator. E.g.,
$ sudo -u operator /bin/ls
It is also possible to override a Runas_Spec later on in an entry. If we modify the entry like so:
dgb boulder = (operator) /bin/ls, (root) /bin/kill, /usr/bin/lprm
Then user dgb is now allowed to run /bin/ls as operator, but /bin/kill and /usr/bin/lprm as root.
We can extend this to allow dgb to run /bin/ls with either the user or group set to operator:
dgb boulder = (operator : operator) /bin/ls, (root) /bin/kill,\
/usr/bin/lprm
Note that while the group portion of the Runas_Spec permits the user to run as command with that group, it does not force the user
to do so. If no group is specified on the command line, the command will run with the group listed in the target user's password
database entry. The following would all be permitted by the sudoers entry above:
$ sudo -u operator /bin/ls
$ sudo -u operator -g operator /bin/ls
$ sudo -g operator /bin/ls
In the following example, user tcm may run commands that access a modem device file with the dialer group.
tcm boulder = (:dialer) /usr/bin/tip, /usr/bin/cu,\
/usr/local/bin/minicom
Note that in this example only the group will be set, the command still runs as user tcm. E.g.
$ sudo -g dialer /usr/bin/cu
Multiple users and groups may be present in a Runas_Spec, in which case the user may select any combination of users and groups via
the -u and -g options. In this example:
alan ALL = (root, bin : operator, system) ALL
user alan may run any command as either user root or bin, optionally setting the group to operator or system.
Option_Spec
A Cmnd may have zero or more options associated with it. Options may consist of start and/or end dates and command timeouts. Once
an option is set for a Cmnd, subsequent Cmnds in the Cmnd_Spec_List, inherit that option unless it is overridden by another option.
Note that the option names are reserved words in sudoers. This means that none of the valid option names (see below) can be used
when declaring an alias.
Date_Spec
sudoers rules can be specified with a start and end date via the NOTBEFORE and NOTAFTER settings. The time stamp must be specified
in Generalized Time as defined by RFC 4517. The format is effectively yyyymmddHHMMSSZ where the minutes and seconds are optional.
The `Z' suffix indicates that the time stamp is in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). It is also possible to specify a timezone
offset from UTC in hours and minutes instead of a `Z'. For example, `-0500' would correspond to Eastern Standard time in the US.
As an extension, if no `Z' or timezone offset is specified, local time will be used.
The following are all valid time stamps:
20170214083000Z
2017021408Z
20160315220000-0500
20151201235900
Timeout_Spec
A command may have a timeout associated with it. If the timeout expires before the command has exited, the command will be
terminated. The timeout may be specified in combinations of days, hours, minutes and seconds with a single-letter case-insensitive
suffix that indicates the unit of time. For example, a timeout of 7 days, 8 hours, 30 minutes and 10 seconds would be written as
7d8h30m10s. If a number is specified without a unit, seconds are assumed. Any of the days, minutes, hours or seconds may be
omitted. The order must be from largest to smallest unit and a unit may not be specified more than once.
The following are all valid timeout values: 7d8h30m10s, 14d, 8h30m, 600s, 3600. The following are invalid timeout values: 12m2w1d,
30s10m4h, 1d2d3h.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.20 or higher.
Chdir_Spec
The working directory that the command will be run in can be specified using the CWD setting. The directory must be a fully-
qualified path name beginning with a `/' or `~' character, or the special value "*". A value of "*" indicates that the user may
specify the working directory by running sudo with the -D option. By default, commands are run from the invoking user's current
working directory, unless the -i option is given. Path names of the form ~user/path/name are interpreted as being relative to the
named user's home directory. If the user name is omitted, the path will be relative to the runas user's home directory.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.3 or higher.
Chroot_Spec
The root directory that the command will be run in can be specified using the CHROOT setting. The directory must be a fully-
qualified path name beginning with a `/' or `~' character, or the special value "*". A value of "*" indicates that the user may
specify the root directory by running sudo with the -R option. This setting can be used to run the command in a chroot(2)
"sandbox" similar to the chroot(8) utility. Path names of the form ~user/path/name are interpreted as being relative to the named
user's home directory. If the user name is omitted, the path will be relative to the runas user's home directory.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.3 or higher.
Tag_Spec
A command may have zero or more tags associated with it. The following tag values are supported: EXEC, NOEXEC, FOLLOW, NOFOLLOW,
LOG_INPUT, NOLOG_INPUT, LOG_OUTPUT, NOLOG_OUTPUT, MAIL, NOMAIL, PASSWD, NOPASSWD, SETENV, and NOSETENV. Once a tag is set on a
Cmnd, subsequent Cmnds in the Cmnd_Spec_List, inherit the tag unless it is overridden by the opposite tag (in other words, PASSWD
overrides NOPASSWD and NOEXEC overrides EXEC).
EXEC and NOEXEC
If sudo has been compiled with noexec support and the underlying operating system supports it, the NOEXEC tag can be used to
prevent a dynamically-linked executable from running further commands itself.
In the following example, user aaron may run /usr/bin/more and /usr/bin/vi but shell escapes will be disabled.
aaron shanty = NOEXEC: /usr/bin/more, /usr/bin/vi
See the Preventing shell escapes section below for more details on how NOEXEC works and whether or not it will work on your
system.
FOLLOW and NOFOLLOW
Starting with version 1.8.15, sudoedit will not open a file that is a symbolic link unless the sudoedit_follow flag is enabled.
The FOLLOW and NOFOLLOW tags override the value of sudoedit_follow and can be used to permit (or deny) the editing of symbolic
links on a per-command basis. These tags are only effective for the sudoedit command and are ignored for all other commands.
LOG_INPUT and NOLOG_INPUT
These tags override the value of the log_input flag on a per-command basis. For more information, see the description of
log_input in the SUDOERS OPTIONS section below.
LOG_OUTPUT and NOLOG_OUTPUT
These tags override the value of the log_output flag on a per-command basis. For more information, see the description of
log_output in the SUDOERS OPTIONS section below.
MAIL and NOMAIL
These tags provide fine-grained control over whether mail will be sent when a user runs a command by overriding the value of the
mail_all_cmnds flag on a per-command basis. They have no effect when sudo is run with the -l or -v options. A NOMAIL tag will
also override the mail_always and mail_no_perms options. For more information, see the descriptions of mail_all_cmnds,
mail_always, and mail_no_perms in the SUDOERS OPTIONS section below.
PASSWD and NOPASSWD
By default, sudo requires that a user authenticate him or herself before running a command. This behavior can be modified via
the NOPASSWD tag. Like a Runas_Spec, the NOPASSWD tag sets a default for the commands that follow it in the Cmnd_Spec_List.
Conversely, the PASSWD tag can be used to reverse things. For example:
ray rushmore = NOPASSWD: /bin/kill, /bin/ls, /usr/bin/lprm
would allow the user ray to run /bin/kill, /bin/ls, and /usr/bin/lprm as root on the machine rushmore without authenticating
himself. If we only want ray to be able to run /bin/kill without a password the entry would be:
ray rushmore = NOPASSWD: /bin/kill, PASSWD: /bin/ls, /usr/bin/lprm
Note, however, that the PASSWD tag has no effect on users who are in the group specified by the exempt_group setting.
By default, if the NOPASSWD tag is applied to any of a user's entries for the current host, the user will be able to run "sudo
-l" without a password. Additionally, a user may only run "sudo -v" without a password if all of the user's entries for the
current host have the NOPASSWD tag. This behavior may be overridden via the verifypw and listpw options.
SETENV and NOSETENV
These tags override the value of the setenv flag on a per-command basis. Note that if SETENV has been set for a command, the
user may disable the env_reset flag from the command line via the -E option. Additionally, environment variables set on the
command line are not subject to the restrictions imposed by env_check, env_delete, or env_keep. As such, only trusted users
should be allowed to set variables in this manner. If the command matched is ALL, the SETENV tag is implied for that command;
this default may be overridden by use of the NOSETENV tag.
Wildcards
sudo allows shell-style wildcards (aka meta or glob characters) to be used in host names, path names and command line arguments in
the sudoers file. Wildcard matching is done via the glob(3) and fnmatch(3) functions as specified by IEEE Std 1003.1 ("POSIX.1").
* Matches any set of zero or more characters (including white space).
? Matches any single character (including white space).
[...] Matches any character in the specified range.
[!...] Matches any character not in the specified range.
\x For any character `x', evaluates to `x'. This is used to escape special characters such as: `*', `?', `[', and `]'.
Note that these are not regular expressions. Unlike a regular expression there is no way to match one or more characters within a
range.
Character classes may be used if your system's glob(3) and fnmatch(3) functions support them. However, because the `:' character
has special meaning in sudoers, it must be escaped. For example:
/bin/ls [[\:alpha\:]]*
Would match any file name beginning with a letter.
Note that a forward slash (`/') will not be matched by wildcards used in the file name portion of the command. This is to make a
path like:
/usr/bin/*
match /usr/bin/who but not /usr/bin/X11/xterm.
When matching the command line arguments, however, a slash does get matched by wildcards since command line arguments may contain
arbitrary strings and not just path names.
Wildcards in command line arguments should be used with care.
Command line arguments are matched as a single, concatenated string. This mean a wildcard character such as `?' or `*' will match
across word boundaries, which may be unexpected. For example, while a sudoers entry like:
%operator ALL = /bin/cat /var/log/messages*
will allow command like:
$ sudo cat /var/log/messages.1
It will also allow:
$ sudo cat /var/log/messages /etc/shadow
which is probably not what was intended. In most cases it is better to do command line processing outside of the sudoers file in a
scripting language.
Exceptions to wildcard rules
The following exceptions apply to the above rules:
"" If the empty string "" is the only command line argument in the sudoers file entry it means that command is not allowed
to be run with any arguments.
sudoedit Command line arguments to the sudoedit built-in command should always be path names, so a forward slash (`/') will not be
matched by a wildcard.
Including other files from within sudoers
It is possible to include other sudoers files from within the sudoers file currently being parsed using the @include and
@includedir directives. For compatibility with sudo versions prior to 1.9.1, #include and #includedir are also accepted.
An include file can be used, for example, to keep a site-wide sudoers file in addition to a local, per-machine file. For the sake
of this example the site-wide sudoers file will be /etc/sudoers and the per-machine one will be /etc/sudoers.local. To include
/etc/sudoers.local from within /etc/sudoers one would use the following line in /etc/sudoers:
@include /etc/sudoers.local
When sudo reaches this line it will suspend processing of the current file (/etc/sudoers) and switch to /etc/sudoers.local. Upon
reaching the end of /etc/sudoers.local, the rest of /etc/sudoers will be processed. Files that are included may themselves include
other files. A hard limit of 128 nested include files is enforced to prevent include file loops.
The path to the include file may contain white space if it is escaped with a backslash (`\'). Alternately, the entire path may be
enclosed in double quotes (""), in which case no escaping is necessary. To include a literal backslash in the path, `\\' should be
used.
If the path to the include file is not fully-qualified (does not begin with a `/'), it must be located in the same directory as the
sudoers file it was included from. For example, if /etc/sudoers contains the line:
@include sudoers.local
the file that will be included is /etc/sudoers.local.
The file name may also include the %h escape, signifying the short form of the host name. In other words, if the machine's host
name is "xerxes", then
@include /etc/sudoers.%h
will cause sudo to include the file /etc/sudoers.xerxes.
The @includedir directive can be used to create a sudoers.d directory that the system package manager can drop sudoers file rules
into as part of package installation. For example, given:
@includedir /etc/sudoers.d
sudo will suspend processing of the current file and read each file in /etc/sudoers.d, skipping file names that end in `~' or
contain a `.' character to avoid causing problems with package manager or editor temporary/backup files. Files are parsed in
sorted lexical order. That is, /etc/sudoers.d/01_first will be parsed before /etc/sudoers.d/10_second. Be aware that because the
sorting is lexical, not numeric, /etc/sudoers.d/1_whoops would be loaded after /etc/sudoers.d/10_second. Using a consistent number
of leading zeroes in the file names can be used to avoid such problems. After parsing the files in the directory, control returns
to the file that contained the @includedir directive.
Note that unlike files included via @include, visudo will not edit the files in a @includedir directory unless one of them contains
a syntax error. It is still possible to run visudo with the -f flag to edit the files directly, but this will not catch the
redefinition of an alias that is also present in a different file.
Other special characters and reserved words
The pound sign (`#') is used to indicate a comment (unless it is part of a #include directive or unless it occurs in the context of
a user name and is followed by one or more digits, in which case it is treated as a user-ID). Both the comment character and any
text after it, up to the end of the line, are ignored.
The reserved word ALL is a built-in alias that always causes a match to succeed. It can be used wherever one might otherwise use a
Cmnd_Alias, User_Alias, Runas_Alias, or Host_Alias. Attempting to define an alias named ALL will result in a syntax error. Please
note that using ALL can be dangerous since in a command context, it allows the user to run any command on the system.
The following option names permitted in an Option_Spec are also considered reserved words: CHROOT, TIMEOUT, CWD, NOTBEFORE and
NOTAFTER. Attempting to define an alias with the same name as one of the options will result in a syntax error.
An exclamation point (`!') can be used as a logical not operator in a list or alias as well as in front of a Cmnd. This allows one
to exclude certain values. For the `!' operator to be effective, there must be something for it to exclude. For example, to match
all users except for root one would use:
ALL,!root
If the ALL, is omitted, as in:
!root
it would explicitly deny root but not match any other users. This is different from a true "negation" operator.
Note, however, that using a `!' in conjunction with the built-in ALL alias to allow a user to run "all but a few" commands rarely
works as intended (see SECURITY NOTES below).
Long lines can be continued with a backslash (`\') as the last character on the line.
White space between elements in a list as well as special syntactic characters in a User Specification (`=', `:', `(', `)') is
optional.
The following characters must be escaped with a backslash (`\') when used as part of a word (e.g., a user name or host name): `!',
`=', `:', `,', `(', `)', `\'.
SUDOERS OPTIONS
sudo's behavior can be modified by Default_Entry lines, as explained earlier. A list of all supported Defaults parameters, grouped
by type, are listed below.
Boolean Flags:
always_query_group_plugin
If a group_plugin is configured, use it to resolve groups of the form %group as long as there is not also a
system group of the same name. Normally, only groups of the form %:group are passed to the group_plugin. This
flag is off by default.
always_set_home If enabled, sudo will set the HOME environment variable to the home directory of the target user (which is the
root user unless the -u option is used). This flag is largely obsolete and has no effect unless the env_reset
flag has been disabled or HOME is present in the env_keep list, both of which are strongly discouraged. This
flag is off by default.
authenticate If set, users must authenticate themselves via a password (or other means of authentication) before they may run
commands. This default may be overridden via the PASSWD and NOPASSWD tags. This flag is on by default.
case_insensitive_group
If enabled, group names in sudoers will be matched in a case insensitive manner. This may be necessary when
users are stored in LDAP or AD. This flag is on by default.
case_insensitive_user
If enabled, user names in sudoers will be matched in a case insensitive manner. This may be necessary when
groups are stored in LDAP or AD. This flag is on by default.
closefrom_override
If set, the user may use the -C option which overrides the default starting point at which sudo begins closing
open file descriptors. This flag is off by default.
compress_io If set, and sudo is configured to log a command's input or output, the I/O logs will be compressed using zlib.
This flag is on by default when sudo is compiled with zlib support.
exec_background By default, sudo runs a command as the foreground process as long as sudo itself is running in the foreground.
When the exec_background flag is enabled and the command is being run in a pseudo-terminal (due to I/O logging or
the use_pty flag), the command will be run as a background process. Attempts to read from the controlling
terminal (or to change terminal settings) will result in the command being suspended with the SIGTTIN signal (or
SIGTTOU in the case of terminal settings). If this happens when sudo is a foreground process, the command will
be granted the controlling terminal and resumed in the foreground with no user intervention required. The
advantage of initially running the command in the background is that sudo need not read from the terminal unless
the command explicitly requests it. Otherwise, any terminal input must be passed to the command, whether it has
required it or not (the kernel buffers terminals so it is not possible to tell whether the command really wants
the input). This is different from historic sudo behavior or when the command is not being run in a pseudo-
terminal.
For this to work seamlessly, the operating system must support the automatic restarting of system calls.
Unfortunately, not all operating systems do this by default, and even those that do may have bugs. For example,
macOS fails to restart the tcgetattr() and tcsetattr() system calls (this is a bug in macOS). Furthermore,
because this behavior depends on the command stopping with the SIGTTIN or SIGTTOU signals, programs that catch
these signals and suspend themselves with a different signal (usually SIGTOP) will not be automatically
foregrounded. Some versions of the linux su(1) command behave this way. This flag is off by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.7 or higher. It has no effect unless I/O logging is enabled or the
use_pty flag is enabled.
env_editor If set, visudo will use the value of the SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR environment variables before falling back
on the default editor list. Note that visudo is typically run as root so this flag may allow a user with visudo
privileges to run arbitrary commands as root without logging. An alternative is to place a colon-separated list
of "safe" editors int the editor variable. visudo will then only use SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR if they match
a value specified in editor. If the env_reset flag is enabled, the SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL and/or EDITOR environment
variables must be present in the env_keep list for the env_editor flag to function when visudo is invoked via
sudo. This flag is on by default.
env_reset If set, sudo will run the command in a minimal environment containing the TERM, PATH, HOME, MAIL, SHELL, LOGNAME,
USER and SUDO_* variables. Any variables in the caller's environment or in the file specified by the
restricted_env_file setting that match the env_keep and env_check lists are then added, followed by any variables
present in the file specified by the env_file setting (if any). The contents of the env_keep and env_check
lists, as modified by global Defaults parameters in sudoers, are displayed when sudo is run by root with the -V
option. If the secure_path setting is enabled, its value will be used for the PATH environment variable. This
flag is on by default.
fast_glob Normally, sudo uses the glob(3) function to do shell-style globbing when matching path names. However, since it
accesses the file system, glob(3) can take a long time to complete for some patterns, especially when the pattern
references a network file system that is mounted on demand (auto mounted). The fast_glob flag causes sudo to use
the fnmatch(3) function, which does not access the file system to do its matching. The disadvantage of fast_glob
is that it is unable to match relative path names such as ./ls or ../bin/ls. This has security implications when
path names that include globbing characters are used with the negation operator, `!', as such rules can be
trivially bypassed. As such, this flag should not be used when the sudoers file contains rules that contain
negated path names which include globbing characters. This flag is off by default.
fqdn Set this flag if you want to put fully qualified host names in the sudoers file when the local host name (as
returned by the hostname command) does not contain the domain name. In other words, instead of myhost you would
use myhost.mydomain.edu. You may still use the short form if you wish (and even mix the two). This flag is only
effective when the "canonical" host name, as returned by the getaddrinfo() or gethostbyname() function, is a
fully-qualified domain name. This is usually the case when the system is configured to use DNS for host name
resolution.
If the system is configured to use the /etc/hosts file in preference to DNS, the "canonical" host name may not be
fully-qualified. The order that sources are queried for host name resolution is usually specified in the
/etc/nsswitch.conf, /etc/netsvc.conf, /etc/host.conf, or, in some cases, /etc/resolv.conf file. In the
/etc/hosts file, the first host name of the entry is considered to be the "canonical" name; subsequent names are
aliases that are not used by sudoers. For example, the following hosts file line for the machine "xyzzy" has the
fully-qualified domain name as the "canonical" host name, and the short version as an alias.
192.168.1.1 xyzzy.sudo.ws xyzzy
If the machine's hosts file entry is not formatted properly, the fqdn flag will not be effective if it is queried
before DNS.
Beware that when using DNS for host name resolution, turning on fqdn requires sudoers to make DNS lookups which
renders sudo unusable if DNS stops working (for example if the machine is disconnected from the network). Also
note that just like with the hosts file, you must use the "canonical" name as DNS knows it. That is, you may not
use a host alias (CNAME entry) due to performance issues and the fact that there is no way to get all aliases
from DNS.
This flag is off by default.
ignore_audit_errors
Allow commands to be run even if sudoers cannot write to the audit log. If enabled, an audit log write failure
is not treated as a fatal error. If disabled, a command may only be run after the audit event is successfully
written. This flag is only effective on systems for which sudoers supports audit logging, including FreeBSD,
Linux, macOS and Solaris. This flag is on by default.
ignore_dot If set, sudo will ignore "." or "" (both denoting current directory) in the PATH environment variable; the PATH
itself is not modified. This flag is off by default.
ignore_iolog_errors
Allow commands to be run even if sudoers cannot write to the I/O log (local or remote). If enabled, an I/O log
write failure is not treated as a fatal error. If disabled, the command will be terminated if the I/O log cannot
be written to. This flag is off by default.
ignore_logfile_errors
Allow commands to be run even if sudoers cannot write to the log file. If enabled, a log file write failure is
not treated as a fatal error. If disabled, a command may only be run after the log file entry is successfully
written. This flag only has an effect when sudoers is configured to use file-based logging via the logfile
setting. This flag is on by default.
ignore_local_sudoers
If set via LDAP, parsing of /private/etc/sudoers will be skipped. This is intended for Enterprises that wish to
prevent the usage of local sudoers files so that only LDAP is used. This thwarts the efforts of rogue operators
who would attempt to add roles to /private/etc/sudoers. When this flag is enabled, /private/etc/sudoers does not
even need to exist. Since this flag tells sudo how to behave when no specific LDAP entries have been matched,
this sudoOption is only meaningful for the cn=defaults section. This flag is off by default.
ignore_unknown_defaults
If set, sudo will not produce a warning if it encounters an unknown Defaults entry in the sudoers file or an
unknown sudoOption in LDAP. This flag is off by default.
insults If set, sudo will insult users when they enter an incorrect password. This flag is off by default.
log_allowed If set, sudoers will log commands allowed by the policy to the system audit log (where supported) as well as to
syslog and/or a log file. This flag is on by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.29 or higher.
log_denied If set, sudoers will log commands denied by the policy to the system audit log (where supported) as well as to
syslog and/or a log file. This flag is on by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.29 or higher.
log_host If set, the host name will be included in log entries written to the file configured by the logfile setting.
This flag is off by default.
log_input If set, sudo will run the command in a pseudo-terminal and log all user input. If the standard input is not
connected to the user's tty, due to I/O redirection or because the command is part of a pipeline, that input is
also captured and stored in a separate log file. Anything sent to the standard input will be consumed,
regardless of whether or not the command run via sudo is actually reading the standard input. This may have
unexpected results when using sudo in a shell script that expects to process the standard input. For more
information about I/O logging, see the I/O LOG FILES section. This flag is off by default.
log_output If set, sudo will run the command in a pseudo-terminal and log all output that is sent to the screen, similar to
the script(1) command. For more information about I/O logging, see the I/O LOG FILES section. This flag is off
by default.
log_server_keepalive
If set, sudo will enable the TCP keepalive socket option on the connection to the log server. This enables the
periodic transmission of keepalive messages to the server. If the server does not respond to a message, the
connection will be closed and the running command will be terminated unless the ignore_iolog_errors flag (I/O
logging enabled) or the ignore_log_errors flag (I/O logging disabled) is set. This flag is on by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.0 or higher.
log_server_verify
If set, the server certificate received during the TLS handshake must be valid and it must contain either the
server name (from log_servers) or its IP address. If either of these conditions is not met, the TLS handshake
will fail. This flag is on by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.0 or higher.
log_year If set, the four-digit year will be logged in the (non-syslog) sudo log file. This flag is off by default.
long_otp_prompt When validating with a One Time Password (OTP) scheme such as S/Key or OPIE, a two-line prompt is used to make it
easier to cut and paste the challenge to a local window. It's not as pretty as the default but some people find
it more convenient. This flag is off by default.
mail_all_cmnds Send mail to the mailto user every time a user attempts to run a command via sudo (this includes sudoedit). No
mail will be sent if the user runs sudo with the -l or -v option unless there is an authentication error and the
mail_badpass flag is also set. This flag is off by default.
mail_always Send mail to the mailto user every time a user runs sudo. This flag is off by default.
mail_badpass Send mail to the mailto user if the user running sudo does not enter the correct password. If the command the
user is attempting to run is not permitted by sudoers and one of the mail_all_cmnds, mail_always, mail_no_host,
mail_no_perms or mail_no_user flags are set, this flag will have no effect. This flag is off by default.
mail_no_host If set, mail will be sent to the mailto user if the invoking user exists in the sudoers file, but is not allowed
to run commands on the current host. This flag is off by default.
mail_no_perms If set, mail will be sent to the mailto user if the invoking user is allowed to use sudo but the command they are
trying is not listed in their sudoers file entry or is explicitly denied. This flag is off by default.
mail_no_user If set, mail will be sent to the mailto user if the invoking user is not in the sudoers file. This flag is on by
default.
match_group_by_gid
By default, sudoers will look up each group the user is a member of by group-ID to determine the group name (this
is only done once). The resulting list of the user's group names is used when matching groups listed in the
sudoers file. This works well on systems where the number of groups listed in the sudoers file is larger than
the number of groups a typical user belongs to. On systems where group lookups are slow, where users may belong
to a large number of groups, and where the number of groups listed in the sudoers file is relatively small, it
may be prohibitively expensive and running commands via sudo may take longer than normal. On such systems it may
be faster to use the match_group_by_gid flag to avoid resolving the user's group-IDs to group names. In this
case, sudoers must look up any group name listed in the sudoers file and use the group-ID instead of the group
name when determining whether the user is a member of the group.
Note that if match_group_by_gid is enabled, group database lookups performed by sudoers will be keyed by group
name as opposed to group-ID. On systems where there are multiple sources for the group database, it is possible
to have conflicting group names or group-IDs in the local /etc/group file and the remote group database. On such
systems, enabling or disabling match_group_by_gid can be used to choose whether group database queries are
performed by name (enabled) or ID (disabled), which may aid in working around group entry conflicts.
The match_group_by_gid flag has no effect when sudoers data is stored in LDAP. This flag is off by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.18 or higher.
netgroup_tuple If set, netgroup lookups will be performed using the full netgroup tuple: host name, user name and domain (if one
is set). Historically, sudo only matched the user name and domain for netgroups used in a User_List and only
matched the host name and domain for netgroups used in a Host_List. This flag is off by default.
noexec If set, all commands run via sudo will behave as if the NOEXEC tag has been set, unless overridden by an EXEC
tag. See the description of EXEC and NOEXEC above as well as the Preventing shell escapes section at the end of
this manual. This flag is off by default.
pam_acct_mgmt On systems that use PAM for authentication, sudo will perform PAM account validation for the invoking user by
default. The actual checks performed depend on which PAM modules are configured. If enabled, account validation
will be performed regardless of whether or not a password is required. This flag is on by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.28 or higher.
pam_rhost On systems that use PAM for authentication, sudo will set the PAM remote host value to the name of the local host
when the pam_rhost flag is enabled. On Linux systems, enabling pam_rhost may result in DNS lookups of the local
host name when PAM is initialized. On Solaris versions prior to Solaris 8, pam_rhost must be enabled if
pam_ruser is also enabled to avoid a crash in the Solaris PAM implementation.
This flag is off by default on systems other than Solaris.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.0 or higher.
pam_ruser On systems that use PAM for authentication, sudo will set the PAM remote user value to the name of the user that
invoked sudo when the pam_ruser flag is enabled. This flag is on by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.0 or higher.
pam_session On systems that use PAM for authentication, sudo will create a new PAM session for the command to be run in.
Unless sudo is given the -i or -s options, PAM session modules are run with the "silent" flag enabled. This
prevents last login information from being displayed for every command on some systems. Disabling pam_session
may be needed on older PAM implementations or on operating systems where opening a PAM session changes the utmp
or wtmp files. If PAM session support is disabled, resource limits may not be updated for the command being run.
If pam_session, pam_setcred, and use_pty are disabled, log_servers has not been set and I/O logging has not been
configured, sudo will execute the command directly instead of running it as a child process. This flag is on by
default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.7 or higher.
pam_setcred On systems that use PAM for authentication, sudo will attempt to establish credentials for the target user by
default, if supported by the underlying authentication system. One example of a credential is a Kerberos ticket.
If pam_session, pam_setcred, and use_pty are disabled, log_servers has not been set and I/O logging has not been
configured, sudo will execute the command directly instead of running it as a child process. This flag is on by
default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.8 or higher.
passprompt_override
If set, the prompt specified by passprompt or the SUDO_PROMPT environment variable will always be used and will
replace the prompt provided by a PAM module or other authentication method. This flag is off by default.
path_info Normally, sudo will tell the user when a command could not be found in their PATH environment variable. Some
sites may wish to disable this as it could be used to gather information on the location of executables that the
normal user does not have access to. The disadvantage is that if the executable is simply not in the user's
PATH, sudo will tell the user that they are not allowed to run it, which can be confusing. This flag is on by
default.
preserve_groups By default, sudo will initialize the group vector to the list of groups the target user is in. When
preserve_groups is set, the user's existing group vector is left unaltered. The real and effective group-IDs,
however, are still set to match the target user. This flag is off by default.
pwfeedback By default, sudo reads the password like most other Unix programs, by turning off echo until the user hits the
return (or enter) key. Some users become confused by this as it appears to them that sudo has hung at this
point. When pwfeedback is set, sudo will provide visual feedback when the user presses a key. Note that this
does have a security impact as an onlooker may be able to determine the length of the password being entered.
This flag is off by default.
requiretty If set, sudo will only run when the user is logged in to a real tty. When this flag is set, sudo can only be run
from a login session and not via other means such as cron(8) or cgi-bin scripts. This flag is off by default.
root_sudo If set, root is allowed to run sudo too. Disabling this prevents users from "chaining" sudo commands to get a
root shell by doing something like "sudo sudo /bin/sh". Note, however, that turning off root_sudo will also
prevent root from running sudoedit. Disabling root_sudo provides no real additional security; it exists purely
for historical reasons. This flag is on by default.
rootpw If set, sudo will prompt for the root password instead of the password of the invoking user when running a
command or editing a file. This flag is off by default.
runas_allow_unknown_id
If enabled, allow matching of runas user and group IDs that are not present in the password or group databases.
In addition to explicitly matching unknown user or group IDs in a Runas_List, this option also allows the ALL
alias to match unknown IDs. This flag is off by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.30 or higher. Older versions of sudo always allowed matching of
unknown user and group IDs.
runas_check_shell
If enabled, sudo will only run commands as a user whose shell appears in the /etc/shells file, even if the
invoking user's Runas_List would otherwise permit it. If no /etc/shells file is present, a system-dependent list
of built-in default shells is used. On many operating systems, system users such as "bin", do not have a valid
shell and this flag can be used to prevent commands from being run as those users. This flag is off by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.30 or higher.
runaspw If set, sudo will prompt for the password of the user defined by the runas_default option (defaults to root)
instead of the password of the invoking user when running a command or editing a file. This flag is off by
default.
set_home If enabled and sudo is invoked with the -s option, the HOME environment variable will be set to the home
directory of the target user (which is the root user unless the -u option is used). This flag is largely
obsolete and has no effect unless the env_reset flag has been disabled or HOME is present in the env_keep list,
both of which are strongly discouraged. This flag is off by default.
set_logname Normally, sudo will set the LOGNAME and USER environment variables to the name of the target user (usually root
unless the -u option is given). However, since some programs (including the RCS revision control system) use
LOGNAME to determine the real identity of the user, it may be desirable to change this behavior. This can be
done by negating the set_logname option. Note that set_logname will have no effect if the env_reset option has
not been disabled and the env_keep list contains LOGNAME or USER. This flag is on by default.
set_utmp When enabled, sudo will create an entry in the utmp (or utmpx) file when a pseudo-terminal is allocated. A
pseudo-terminal is allocated by sudo when it is running in a terminal and one or more of the log_input,
log_output or use_pty flags is enabled. By default, the new entry will be a copy of the user's existing utmp
entry (if any), with the tty, time, type and pid fields updated. This flag is on by default.
setenv Allow the user to disable the env_reset option from the command line via the -E option. Additionally,
environment variables set via the command line are not subject to the restrictions imposed by env_check,
env_delete, or env_keep. As such, only trusted users should be allowed to set variables in this manner. This
flag is off by default.
shell_noargs If set and sudo is invoked with no arguments it acts as if the -s option had been given. That is, it runs a
shell as root (the shell is determined by the SHELL environment variable if it is set, falling back on the shell
listed in the invoking user's /etc/passwd entry if not). This flag is off by default.
stay_setuid Normally, when sudo executes a command the real and effective UIDs are set to the target user (root by default).
This option changes that behavior such that the real UID is left as the invoking user's UID. In other words,
this makes sudo act as a set-user-ID wrapper. This can be useful on systems that disable some potentially
dangerous functionality when a program is run set-user-ID. This option is only effective on systems that support
either the setreuid(2) or setresuid(2) system call. This flag is off by default.
sudoedit_checkdir
If set, sudoedit will check all directory components of the path to be edited for writability by the invoking
user. Symbolic links will not be followed in writable directories and sudoedit will refuse to edit a file
located in a writable directory. These restrictions are not enforced when sudoedit is run by root. On some
systems, if all directory components of the path to be edited are not readable by the target user, sudoedit will
be unable to edit the file. This flag is on by default.
This setting was first introduced in version 1.8.15 but initially suffered from a race condition. The check for
symbolic links in writable intermediate directories was added in version 1.8.16.
sudoedit_follow By default, sudoedit will not follow symbolic links when opening files. The sudoedit_follow option can be
enabled to allow sudoedit to open symbolic links. It may be overridden on a per-command basis by the FOLLOW and
NOFOLLOW tags. This flag is off by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.15 or higher.
syslog_pid When logging via syslog(3), include the process ID in the log entry. This flag is off by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.21 or higher.
targetpw If set, sudo will prompt for the password of the user specified by the -u option (defaults to root) instead of
the password of the invoking user when running a command or editing a file. Note that this flag precludes the
use of a user-ID not listed in the passwd database as an argument to the -u option. This flag is off by default.
tty_tickets If set, users must authenticate on a per-tty basis. With this flag enabled, sudo will use a separate record in
the time stamp file for each terminal. If disabled, a single record is used for all login sessions.
This option has been superseded by the timestamp_type option.
umask_override If set, sudo will set the umask as specified in the sudoers file without modification. This makes it possible to
specify a umask in the sudoers file that is more permissive than the user's own umask and matches historical
behavior. If umask_override is not set, sudo will set the umask to be the union of the user's umask and what is
specified in sudoers. This flag is off by default.
use_netgroups If set, netgroups (prefixed with `+'), may be used in place of a user or host. For LDAP-based sudoers, netgroup
support requires an expensive sub-string match on the server unless the NETGROUP_BASE directive is present in the
/etc/ldap.conf file. If netgroups are not needed, this option can be disabled to reduce the load on the LDAP
server. This flag is on by default.
use_pty If set, and sudo is running in a terminal, the command will be run in a pseudo-terminal (even if no I/O logging
is being done). If the sudo process is not attached to a terminal, use_pty has no effect.
A malicious program run under sudo may be capable of injecting commands into the user's terminal or running a
background process that retains access to the user's terminal device even after the main program has finished
executing. By running the command in a separate pseudo-terminal, this attack is no longer possible. This flag
is off by default.
user_command_timeouts
If set, the user may specify a timeout on the command line. If the timeout expires before the command has
exited, the command will be terminated. If a timeout is specified both in the sudoers file and on the command
line, the smaller of the two timeouts will be used. See the Timeout_Spec section for a description of the
timeout syntax. This flag is off by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.20 or higher.
utmp_runas If set, sudo will store the name of the runas user when updating the utmp (or utmpx) file. By default, sudo
stores the name of the invoking user. This flag is off by default.
visiblepw By default, sudo will refuse to run if the user must enter a password but it is not possible to disable echo on
the terminal. If the visiblepw flag is set, sudo will prompt for a password even when it would be visible on the
screen. This makes it possible to run things like "ssh somehost sudo ls" since by default, ssh(1) does not
allocate a tty when running a command. This flag is off by default.
Integers:
closefrom Before it executes a command, sudo will close all open file descriptors other than standard input, standard
output and standard error (ie: file descriptors 0-2). The closefrom option can be used to specify a different
file descriptor at which to start closing. The default is 3.
command_timeout The maximum amount of time a command is allowed to run before it is terminated. See the Timeout_Spec section for
a description of the timeout syntax.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.20 or higher.
log_server_timeout
The maximum amount of time to wait when connecting to a log server or waiting for a server response. See the
Timeout_Spec section for a description of the timeout syntax. The default value is 30 seconds.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.0 or higher.
maxseq The maximum sequence number that will be substituted for the "%{seq}" escape in the I/O log file (see the
iolog_dir description below for more information). While the value substituted for "%{seq}" is in base 36,
maxseq itself should be expressed in decimal. Values larger than 2176782336 (which corresponds to the base 36
sequence number "ZZZZZZ") will be silently truncated to 2176782336. The default value is 2176782336.
Once the local sequence number reaches the value of maxseq, it will "roll over" to zero, after which sudoers will
truncate and re-use any existing I/O log path names.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.7 or higher.
passwd_tries The number of tries a user gets to enter his/her password before sudo logs the failure and exits. The default is
3.
syslog_maxlen On many systems, syslog(3) has a relatively small log buffer. IETF RFC 5424 states that syslog servers must
support messages of at least 480 bytes and should support messages up to 2048 bytes. By default, sudoers creates
log messages up to 980 bytes which corresponds to the historic BSD syslog implementation which used a 1024 byte
buffer to store the message, date, hostname and program name. To prevent syslog messages from being truncated,
sudoers will split up log messages that are larger than syslog_maxlen bytes. When a message is split, additional
parts will include the string "(command continued)" after the user name and before the continued command line
arguments.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.19 or higher.
Integers that can be used in a boolean context:
loglinelen Number of characters per line for the file log. This value is used to decide when to wrap lines for nicer log
files. This has no effect on the syslog log file, only the file log. The default is 80 (use 0 or negate the
option to disable word wrap).
passwd_timeout Number of minutes before the sudo password prompt times out, or 0 for no timeout. The timeout may include a
fractional component if minute granularity is insufficient, for example 2.5. The default is 0.
timestamp_timeout
Number of minutes that can elapse before sudo will ask for a passwd again. The timeout may include a fractional
component if minute granularity is insufficient, for example 2.5. The default is 5. Set this to 0 to always
prompt for a password. If set to a value less than 0 the user's time stamp will not expire until the system is
rebooted. This can be used to allow users to create or delete their own time stamps via "sudo -v" and "sudo -k"
respectively.
umask File mode creation mask to use when running the command. Negate this option or set it to 0777 to prevent sudoers
from changing the umask. Unless the umask_override flag is set, the actual umask will be the union of the user's
umask and the value of the umask setting, which defaults to 0022. This guarantees that sudo never lowers the
umask when running a command.
If umask is explicitly set in sudoers, it will override any umask setting in PAM or login.conf. If umask is not
set in sudoers, the umask specified by PAM or login.conf will take precedence. The umask setting in PAM is not
used for sudoedit, which does not create a new PAM session.
Strings:
authfail_message Message that is displayed after a user fails to authenticate. The message may include the `%d' escape which will
expand to the number of failed password attempts. If set, it overrides the default message, %d incorrect
password attempt(s).
badpass_message Message that is displayed if a user enters an incorrect password. The default is Sorry, try again. unless
insults are enabled.
editor A colon (`:') separated list of editors path names used by sudoedit and visudo. For sudoedit, this list is used
to find an editor when none of the SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR environment variables are set to an editor that
exists and is executable. For visudo, it is used as a white list of allowed editors; visudo will choose the
editor that matches the user's SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR environment variable if possible, or the first
editor in the list that exists and is executable if not. Unless invoked as sudoedit, sudo does not preserve the
SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR environment variables unless they are present in the env_keep list or the env_reset
option is disabled. The default is vi.
iolog_dir The top-level directory to use when constructing the path name for the input/output log directory. Only used if
the log_input or log_output options are enabled or when the LOG_INPUT or LOG_OUTPUT tags are present for a
command. The session sequence number, if any, is stored in the directory. The default is /var/log/sudo-io.
The following percent (`%') escape sequences are supported:
%{seq}
expanded to a monotonically increasing base-36 sequence number, such as 0100A5, where every two digits are
used to form a new directory, e.g., 01/00/A5
%{user}
expanded to the invoking user's login name
%{group}
expanded to the name of the invoking user's real group-ID
%{runas_user}
expanded to the login name of the user the command will be run as (e.g., root)
%{runas_group}
expanded to the group name of the user the command will be run as (e.g., wheel)
%{hostname}
expanded to the local host name without the domain name
%{command}
expanded to the base name of the command being run
In addition, any escape sequences supported by the system's strftime(3) function will be expanded.
To include a literal `%' character, the string `%%' should be used.
iolog_file The path name, relative to iolog_dir, in which to store input/output logs when the log_input or log_output
options are enabled or when the LOG_INPUT or LOG_OUTPUT tags are present for a command. Note that iolog_file may
contain directory components. The default is "%{seq}".
See the iolog_dir option above for a list of supported percent (`%') escape sequences.
In addition to the escape sequences, path names that end in six or more Xs will have the Xs replaced with a
unique combination of digits and letters, similar to the mktemp(3) function.
If the path created by concatenating iolog_dir and iolog_file already exists, the existing I/O log file will be
truncated and overwritten unless iolog_file ends in six or more Xs.
iolog_flush If set, sudo will flush I/O log data to disk after each write instead of buffering it. This makes it possible to
view the logs in real-time as the program is executing but may significantly reduce the effectiveness of I/O log
compression. This flag is off by default.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.20 or higher.
iolog_group The group name to look up when setting the group-ID on new I/O log files and directories. If iolog_group is not
set, the primary group-ID of the user specified by iolog_user is used. If neither iolog_group nor iolog_user are
set, I/O log files and directories are created with group-ID 0.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.19 or higher.
iolog_mode The file mode to use when creating I/O log files. Mode bits for read and write permissions for owner, group or
other are honored, everything else is ignored. The file permissions will always include the owner read and write
bits, even if they are not present in the specified mode. When creating I/O log directories, search (execute)
bits are added to match the read and write bits specified by iolog_mode. Defaults to 0600 (read and write by
user only).
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.19 or higher.
iolog_user The user name to look up when setting the user and group-IDs on new I/O log files and directories. If
iolog_group is set, it will be used instead of the user's primary group-ID. By default, I/O log files and
directories are created with user and group-ID 0.
This setting can be useful when the I/O logs are stored on a Network File System (NFS) share. Having a dedicated
user own the I/O log files means that sudoers does not write to the log files as user-ID 0, which is usually not
permitted by NFS.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.19 or higher.
lecture_status_dir
The directory in which sudo stores per-user lecture status files. Once a user has received the lecture, a zero-
length file is created in this directory so that sudo will not lecture the user again. This directory should not
be cleared when the system reboots. The default is /var/db/sudo/lectured.
log_server_cabundle
The path to a certificate authority bundle file, in PEM format, to use instead of the system's default
certificate authority database when authenticating the log server. The default is to use the system's default
certificate authority database. This setting has no effect unless log_servers is set and the remote log server
is secured with TLS.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.0 or higher.
log_server_peer_cert
The path to the client's certificate file, in PEM format. This setting is required when log_servers is set and
the remote log server is secured with TLS.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.0 or higher.
log_server_peer_key
The path to the client's private key file, in PEM format. This setting is required when log_servers is set and
the remote log server is secured with TLS.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.0 or higher.
mailsub Subject of the mail sent to the mailto user. The escape %h will expand to the host name of the machine. Default
is "*** SECURITY information for %h ***".
noexec_file As of sudo version 1.8.1 this option is no longer supported. The path to the noexec file should now be set in
the sudo.conf(5) file.
pam_login_service
On systems that use PAM for authentication, this is the service name used when the -i option is specified. The
default value is "sudo". See the description of pam_service for more information.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.8 or higher.
pam_service On systems that use PAM for authentication, the service name specifies the PAM policy to apply. This usually
corresponds to an entry in the pam.conf file or a file in the /etc/pam.d directory. The default value is "sudo".
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.8 or higher.
passprompt The default prompt to use when asking for a password; can be overridden via the -p option or the SUDO_PROMPT
environment variable. The following percent (`%') escape sequences are supported:
%H expanded to the local host name including the domain name (only if the machine's host name is fully
qualified or the fqdn option is set)
%h expanded to the local host name without the domain name
%p expanded to the user whose password is being asked for (respects the rootpw, targetpw and runaspw flags in
sudoers)
%U expanded to the login name of the user the command will be run as (defaults to root)
%u expanded to the invoking user's login name
%% two consecutive % characters are collapsed into a single % character
On systems that use PAM for authentication, passprompt will only be used if the prompt provided by the PAM module
matches the string "Password: " or "username's Password: ". This ensures that the passprompt setting does not
interfere with challenge-response style authentication. The passprompt_override flag can be used to change this
behavior.
The default value is "Password: ".
runas_default The default user to run commands as if the -u option is not specified on the command line. This defaults to
root.
sudoers_locale Locale to use when parsing the sudoers file, logging commands, and sending email. Note that changing the locale
may affect how sudoers is interpreted. Defaults to "C".
timestamp_type sudoers uses per-user time stamp files for credential caching. The timestamp_type option can be used to specify
the type of time stamp record used. It has the following possible values:
global A single time stamp record is used for all of a user's login sessions, regardless of the terminal or
parent process ID. An additional record is used to serialize password prompts when sudo is used multiple
times in a pipeline, but this does not affect authentication.
ppid A single time stamp record is used for all processes with the same parent process ID (usually the shell).
Commands run from the same shell (or other common parent process) will not require a password for
timestamp_timeout minutes (5 by default) . Commands run via sudo with a different parent process ID, for
example from a shell script, will be authenticated separately.
tty One time stamp record is used for each terminal, which means that a user's login sessions are
authenticated separately. If no terminal is present, the behavior is the same as ppid. Commands run
from the same terminal will not require a password for timestamp_timeout minutes (5 by default) .
kernel The time stamp is stored in the kernel as an attribute of the terminal device. If no terminal is
present, the behavior is the same as ppid. Negative timestamp_timeout values are not supported and
positive values are limited to a maximum of 60 minutes. This is currently only supported on OpenBSD.
The default value is tty.
This setting is only supported by version 1.8.21 or higher.
timestampdir The directory in which sudo stores its time stamp files. This directory should be cleared when the system
reboots. The default is /var/db/sudo/ts.
timestampowner The owner of the lecture status directory, time stamp directory and all files stored therein. The default is
root.
env_check Environment variables to be removed from the user's environment unless they are considered "safe". For all
variables except TZ, "safe" means that the variable's value does not contain any `%' or `/' characters. This can
be used to guard against printf-style format vulnerabilities in poorly-written programs. The TZ variable is
considered unsafe if any of the following are true:
o It consists of a fully-qualified path name, optionally prefixed with a colon (`:'), that does not match the
location of the zoneinfo directory.
o It contains a .. path element.
o It contains white space or non-printable characters.
o It is longer than the value of PATH_MAX.
The argument may be a double-quoted, space-separated list or a single value without double-quotes. The list can
be replaced, added to, deleted from, or disabled by using the =, +=, -=, and ! operators respectively.
Regardless of whether the env_reset option is enabled or disabled, variables specified by env_check will be
preserved in the environment if they pass the aforementioned check. The global list of environment variables to
check is displayed when sudo is run by root with the -V option.
env_delete Environment variables to be removed from the user's environment when the env_reset option is not in effect. The
argument may be a double-quoted, space-separated list or a single value without double-quotes. The list can be
replaced, added to, deleted from, or disabled by using the =, +=, -=, and ! operators respectively. The global
list of environment variables to remove is displayed when sudo is run by root with the -V option. Note that many
operating systems will remove potentially dangerous variables from the environment of any set-user-ID process
(such as sudo).
env_keep Environment variables to be preserved in the user's environment when the env_reset option is in effect. This
allows fine-grained control over the environment sudo-spawned processes will receive. The argument may be a
double-quoted, space-separated list or a single value without double-quotes. The list can be replaced, added to,
deleted from, or disabled by using the =, +=, -=, and ! operators respectively. The global list of variables to
keep is displayed when sudo is run by root with the -V option.
Preserving the HOME environment variable has security implications since many programs use it when searching for
configuration or data files. Adding HOME to env_keep may enable a user to run unrestricted commands via sudo and
is strongly discouraged. Users wishing to edit files with sudo should run sudoedit (or sudo -e) to get their
accustomed editor configuration instead of invoking the editor directly.
log_servers A list of one or more servers to use for remote event and I/O log storage, separated by white space. Log servers
must be running sudo_logsrvd or another service that implements the protocol described by sudo_logsrv.proto(5).
Server addresses should be of the form "host[:port][(tls)]". The host portion may be a host name, an IPv4
address, or an IPv6 address in square brackets.
If the optional tls flag is present, the connection will be secured with Transport Layer Security (TLS) version
1.2 or 1.3. Versions of TLS prior to 1.2 are not supported.
If a port is specified, it may either be a port number or a well-known service name as defined by the system
service name database. If no port is specified, port 30343 will be used for plaintext connections and port 30344
will be used for TLS connections.
When log_servers is set, event log data will be logged both locally (see the syslog and log_file settings) as
well as remotely, but I/O log data will only be logged remotely. If multiple hosts are specified, they will be
attempted in reverse order. If no log servers are available, the user will not be able to run a command unless
either the ignore_iolog_errors flag (I/O logging enabled) or the ignore_log_errors flag (I/O logging disabled) is
set. Likewise, if the connection to the log server is interrupted while sudo is running, the command will be
terminated unless the ignore_iolog_errors flag (I/O logging enabled) or the ignore_log_errors flag (I/O logging
disabled) is set.
This setting is only supported by version 1.9.0 or higher.
GROUP PROVIDER PLUGINS
The sudoers plugin supports its own plugin interface to allow non-Unix group lookups which can query a group source other than the
standard Unix group database. This can be used to implement support for the nonunix_group syntax described earlier.
Group provider plugins are specified via the group_plugin setting. The argument to group_plugin should consist of the plugin path,
either fully-qualified or relative to the /usr/local/libexec/sudo directory, followed by any configuration options the plugin
requires. These options (if specified) will be passed to the plugin's initialization function. If options are present, the string
must be enclosed in double quotes ("").
The following group provider plugins are installed by default:
group_file
The group_file plugin supports an alternate group file that uses the same syntax as the /etc/group file. The path to the
group file should be specified as an option to the plugin. For example, if the group file to be used is /etc/sudo-group:
Defaults group_plugin="group_file.so /etc/sudo-group"
system_group
The system_group plugin supports group lookups via the standard C library functions getgrnam() and getgrid(). This
plugin can be used in instances where the user belongs to groups not present in the user's supplemental group vector.
This plugin takes no options:
Defaults group_plugin=system_group.so
The group provider plugin API is described in detail in sudo_plugin(5).
LOG FORMAT
sudoers can log events in either JSON or sudo format, this section describes the sudo log format. Depending on sudoers
configuration, sudoers can log events via syslog(3), to a local log file, or both. The log format is almost identical in both
cases.
Accepted command log entries
Commands that sudo runs are logged using the following format (split into multiple lines for readability):
date hostname progname: username : TTY=ttyname ; PWD=cwd ; \
USER=runasuser ; GROUP=runasgroup ; TSID=logid ; \
ENV=env_vars COMMAND=command
Where the fields are as follows:
date The date the command was run. Typically, this is in the format "MMM, DD, HH:MM:SS". If logging via syslog(3), the
actual date format is controlled by the syslog daemon. If logging to a file and the log_year option is enabled, the
date will also include the year.
hostname The name of the host sudo was run on. This field is only present when logging via syslog(3).
progname The name of the program, usually sudo or sudoedit. This field is only present when logging via syslog(3).
username The login name of the user who ran sudo.
ttyname The short name of the terminal (e.g., "console", "tty01", or "pts/0") sudo was run on, or "unknown" if there was no
terminal present.
cwd The current working directory that sudo was run in.
runasuser The user the command was run as.
runasgroup The group the command was run as if one was specified on the command line.
logid An I/O log identifier that can be used to replay the command's output. This is only present when the log_input or
log_output option is enabled.
env_vars A list of environment variables specified on the command line, if specified.
command The actual command that was executed.
Messages are logged using the locale specified by sudoers_locale, which defaults to the "C" locale.
Denied command log entries
If the user is not allowed to run the command, the reason for the denial will follow the user name. Possible reasons include:
user NOT in sudoers
The user is not listed in the sudoers file.
user NOT authorized on host
The user is listed in the sudoers file but is not allowed to run commands on the host.
command not allowed
The user is listed in the sudoers file for the host but they are not allowed to run the specified command.
3 incorrect password attempts
The user failed to enter their password after 3 tries. The actual number of tries will vary based on the number of failed
attempts and the value of the passwd_tries option.
a password is required
The -n option was specified but a password was required.
sorry, you are not allowed to set the following environment variables
The user specified environment variables on the command line that were not allowed by sudoers.
Error log entries
If an error occurs, sudoers will log a message and, in most cases, send a message to the administrator via email. Possible errors
include:
parse error in /private/etc/sudoers near line N
sudoers encountered an error when parsing the specified file. In some cases, the actual error may be one line above or below
the line number listed, depending on the type of error.
problem with defaults entries
The sudoers file contains one or more unknown Defaults settings. This does not prevent sudo from running, but the sudoers file
should be checked using visudo.
timestamp owner (username): No such user
The time stamp directory owner, as specified by the timestampowner setting, could not be found in the password database.
unable to open/read /private/etc/sudoers
The sudoers file could not be opened for reading. This can happen when the sudoers file is located on a remote file system that
maps user-ID 0 to a different value. Normally, sudoers tries to open the sudoers file using group permissions to avoid this
problem. Consider either changing the ownership of /private/etc/sudoers or adding an argument like "sudoers_uid=N" (where `N'
is the user-ID that owns the sudoers file) to the end of the sudoers Plugin line in the sudo.conf(5) file.
unable to stat /private/etc/sudoers
The /private/etc/sudoers file is missing.
/private/etc/sudoers is not a regular file
The /private/etc/sudoers file exists but is not a regular file or symbolic link.
/private/etc/sudoers is owned by uid N, should be 0
The sudoers file has the wrong owner. If you wish to change the sudoers file owner, please add "sudoers_uid=N" (where `N' is
the user-ID that owns the sudoers file) to the sudoers Plugin line in the sudo.conf(5) file.
/private/etc/sudoers is world writable
The permissions on the sudoers file allow all users to write to it. The sudoers file must not be world-writable, the default
file mode is 0440 (readable by owner and group, writable by none). The default mode may be changed via the "sudoers_mode"
option to the sudoers Plugin line in the sudo.conf(5) file.
/private/etc/sudoers is owned by gid N, should be 1
The sudoers file has the wrong group ownership. If you wish to change the sudoers file group ownership, please add
"sudoers_gid=N" (where `N' is the group-ID that owns the sudoers file) to the sudoers Plugin line in the sudo.conf(5) file.
unable to open /var/db/sudo/ts/username
sudoers was unable to read or create the user's time stamp file. This can happen when timestampowner is set to a user other
than root and the mode on /var/db/sudo is not searchable by group or other. The default mode for /var/db/sudo is 0711.
unable to write to /var/db/sudo/ts/username
sudoers was unable to write to the user's time stamp file.
/var/db/sudo/ts is owned by uid X, should be Y
The time stamp directory is owned by a user other than timestampowner. This can occur when the value of timestampowner has been
changed. sudoers will ignore the time stamp directory until the owner is corrected.
/var/db/sudo/ts is group writable
The time stamp directory is group-writable; it should be writable only by timestampowner. The default mode for the time stamp
directory is 0700. sudoers will ignore the time stamp directory until the mode is corrected.
Notes on logging via syslog
By default, sudoers logs messages via syslog(3). The date, hostname, and progname fields are added by the system's syslog()
function, not sudoers itself. As such, they may vary in format on different systems.
The maximum size of syslog messages varies from system to system. The syslog_maxlen setting can be used to change the maximum
syslog message size from the default value of 980 bytes. For more information, see the description of syslog_maxlen.
Notes on logging to a file
If the logfile option is set, sudoers will log to a local file, such as /var/log/sudo. When logging to a file, sudoers uses a
format similar to syslog(3), with a few important differences:
1. The progname and hostname fields are not present.
2. If the log_year option is enabled, the date will also include the year.
3. Lines that are longer than loglinelen characters (80 by default) are word-wrapped and continued on the next line with a four
character indent. This makes entries easier to read for a human being, but makes it more difficult to use grep(1) on the log
files. If the loglinelen option is set to 0 (or negated with a `!'), word wrap will be disabled.
I/O LOG FILES
When I/O logging is enabled, sudo will run the command in a pseudo-terminal and log all user input and/or output, depending on
which options are enabled. I/O can be logged either to the local machine or to a remote log server. For local logs, I/O is logged
to the directory specified by the iolog_dir option (/var/log/sudo-io by default) using a unique session ID that is included in the
sudo log line, prefixed with "TSID=". The iolog_file option may be used to control the format of the session ID. For remote logs,
the log_servers setting is used to specify one or more log servers running sudo_logsrvd or another server that implements the
protocol described by sudo_logsrv.proto(5).
For both local and remote I/O logs, each log is stored in a separate directory that contains the following files:
log A text file containing information about the command. The first line consists of the following colon-delimited fields:
the time the command was run, the name of the user who ran sudo, the name of the target user, the name of the target
group (optional), the terminal that sudo was run from, and the number of lines and columns of the terminal. The second
and third lines contain the working directory the command was run from and the path name of the command itself (with
arguments if present).
log.json A JSON-formatted file containing information about the command. This is similar to the log file but contains additional
information and is easily extensible. The log.json file will be used by sudoreplay(8) in preference to the log file if
it exists. The file may contain the following elements:
timestamp
A JSON object containing time the command was run. It consists of two values, seconds and nanoseconds.
columns The number of columns of the terminal the command ran on, or zero if no terminal was present.
command The fully-qualified path of the command that was run.
lines The number of lines of the terminal the command ran on, or zero if no terminal was present.
runargv A JSON array representing the command's argument vector as passed to the execve(2) system call.
runenv A JSON array representing the command's environment as passed to the execve(2) system call.
rungid The group ID the command ran as. This element is only present when the user specifies a group on the command
line.
rungroup The name of the group the command ran as. This element is only present when the user specifies a group on the
command line.
runuid The user ID the command ran as.
runuser The name of the user the command ran as.
submitcwd
The current working directory at the time sudo was run.
submithost
The name of the host the command was run on.
submituser
The name of the user who ran the command via sudo.
ttyname The path name of the terminal the user invoked sudo from. If the command was run in a pseudo-terminal, ttyname
will be different from the terminal the command actually ran in.
timing Timing information used to replay the session. Each line consists of the I/O log entry type and amount of time since the
last entry, followed by type-specific data. The I/O log entry types and their corresponding type-specific data are:
0 standard input, number of bytes in the entry
1 standard output, number of bytes in the entry
2 standard error, number of bytes in the entry
3 terminal input, number of bytes in the entry
4 terminal output, number of bytes in the entry
5 window change, new number lines and columns
6 bug compatibility for sudo 1.8.7 terminal output
7 command suspend or resume, signal received
ttyin Raw input from the user's terminal, exactly as it was received. No post-processing is performed. For manual viewing,
you may wish to convert carriage return characters in the log to line feeds. For example: `gunzip -c ttyin | tr "\r"
"\n"'
stdin The standard input when no terminal is present, or input redirected from a pipe or file.
ttyout Output from the pseudo-terminal (what the command writes to the screen). Note that terminal-specific post-processing is
performed before the data is logged. This means that, for example, line feeds are usually converted to line
feed/carriage return pairs and tabs may be expanded to spaces.
stdout The standard output when no terminal is present, or output redirected to a pipe or file.
stderr The standard error redirected to a pipe or file.
All files other than log are compressed in gzip format unless the compress_io flag has been disabled. Due to buffering, it is not
normally possible to display the I/O logs in real-time as the program is executing. The I/O log data will not be complete until
the program run by sudo has exited or has been terminated by a signal. The iolog_flush flag can be used to disable buffering, in
which case I/O log data is written to disk as soon as it is available. The output portion of an I/O log file can be viewed with
the sudoreplay(8) utility, which can also be used to list or search the available logs.
Note that user input may contain sensitive information such as passwords (even if they are not echoed to the screen), which will be
stored in the log file unencrypted. In most cases, logging the command output via log_output or LOG_OUTPUT is all that is
required.
Since each session's I/O logs are stored in a separate directory, traditional log rotation utilities cannot be used to limit the
number of I/O logs. The simplest way to limit the number of I/O is by setting the maxseq option to the maximum number of logs you
wish to store. Once the I/O log sequence number reaches maxseq, it will be reset to zero and sudoers will truncate and re-use any
existing I/O logs.
FILES
/private/etc/sudo.conf Sudo front end configuration
/private/etc/sudoers List of who can run what
/etc/group Local groups file
/etc/netgroup List of network groups
/var/log/sudo-io I/O log files
/var/db/sudo/ts Directory containing time stamps for the sudoers security policy
/var/db/sudo/lectured Directory containing lecture status files for the sudoers security policy
/etc/environment Initial environment for -i mode on AIX and Linux systems
EXAMPLES
Below are example sudoers file entries. Admittedly, some of these are a bit contrived. First, we allow a few environment
variables to pass and then define our aliases:
# Run X applications through sudo; HOME is used to find the
# .Xauthority file. Note that other programs use HOME to find
# configuration files and this may lead to privilege escalation!
Defaults env_keep += "DISPLAY HOME"
# User alias specification
User_Alias FULLTIMERS = millert, mikef, dowdy
User_Alias PARTTIMERS = bostley, jwfox, crawl
User_Alias WEBADMIN = will, wendy, wim
# Runas alias specification
Runas_Alias OP = root, operator
Runas_Alias DB = oracle, sybase
Runas_Alias ADMINGRP = adm, oper
# Host alias specification
Host_Alias SPARC = bigtime, eclipse, moet, anchor :\
SGI = grolsch, dandelion, black :\
ALPHA = widget, thalamus, foobar :\
HPPA = boa, nag, python
Host_Alias CUNETS = 128.138.0.0/255.255.0.0
Host_Alias CSNETS = 128.138.243.0, 128.138.204.0/24, 128.138.242.0
Host_Alias SERVERS = primary, mail, www, ns
Host_Alias CDROM = orion, perseus, hercules
# Cmnd alias specification
Cmnd_Alias DUMPS = /usr/bin/mt, /usr/sbin/dump, /usr/sbin/rdump,\
/usr/sbin/restore, /usr/sbin/rrestore,\
sha224:0GomF8mNN3wlDt1HD9XldjJ3SNgpFdbjO1+NsQ== \
/home/operator/bin/start_backups
Cmnd_Alias KILL = /usr/bin/kill
Cmnd_Alias PRINTING = /usr/sbin/lpc, /usr/bin/lprm
Cmnd_Alias SHUTDOWN = /usr/sbin/shutdown
Cmnd_Alias HALT = /usr/sbin/halt
Cmnd_Alias REBOOT = /usr/sbin/reboot
Cmnd_Alias SHELLS = /usr/bin/sh, /usr/bin/csh, /usr/bin/ksh,\
/usr/local/bin/tcsh, /usr/bin/rsh,\
/usr/local/bin/zsh
Cmnd_Alias SU = /usr/bin/su
Cmnd_Alias PAGERS = /usr/bin/more, /usr/bin/pg, /usr/bin/less
Here we override some of the compiled in default values. We want sudo to log via syslog(3) using the auth facility in all cases
and for commands to be run with the target user's home directory as the working directory. We don't want to subject the full time
staff to the sudo lecture and we want to allow them to run commands in a chroot(2) "sandbox" via the -R option. User millert need
not provide a password and we don't want to reset the LOGNAME or USER environment variables when running commands as root.
Additionally, on the machines in the SERVERS Host_Alias, we keep an additional local log file and make sure we log the year in each
log line since the log entries will be kept around for several years. Lastly, we disable shell escapes for the commands in the
PAGERS Cmnd_Alias (/usr/bin/more, /usr/bin/pg and /usr/bin/less) . Note that this will not effectively constrain users with sudo
ALL privileges.
# Override built-in defaults
Defaults syslog=auth,runcwd=~
Defaults>root !set_logname
Defaults:FULLTIMERS !lecture,runchroot=*
Defaults:millert !authenticate
Defaults@SERVERS log_year, logfile=/var/log/sudo.log
Defaults!PAGERS noexec
The User specification is the part that actually determines who may run what.
root ALL = (ALL) ALL
%wheel ALL = (ALL) ALL
We let root and any user in group wheel run any command on any host as any user.
FULLTIMERS ALL = NOPASSWD: ALL
Full time sysadmins (millert, mikef, and dowdy) may run any command on any host without authenticating themselves.
PARTTIMERS ALL = ALL
Part time sysadmins bostley, jwfox, and crawl) may run any command on any host but they must authenticate themselves first (since
the entry lacks the NOPASSWD tag).
jack CSNETS = ALL
The user jack may run any command on the machines in the CSNETS alias (the networks 128.138.243.0, 128.138.204.0, and
128.138.242.0). Of those networks, only 128.138.204.0 has an explicit netmask (in CIDR notation) indicating it is a class C
network. For the other networks in CSNETS, the local machine's netmask will be used during matching.
lisa CUNETS = ALL
The user lisa may run any command on any host in the CUNETS alias (the class B network 128.138.0.0).
operator ALL = DUMPS, KILL, SHUTDOWN, HALT, REBOOT, PRINTING,\
sudoedit /etc/printcap, /usr/oper/bin/
The operator user may run commands limited to simple maintenance. Here, those are commands related to backups, killing processes,
the printing system, shutting down the system, and any commands in the directory /usr/oper/bin/. Note that one command in the
DUMPS Cmnd_Alias includes a sha224 digest, /home/operator/bin/start_backups. This is because the directory containing the script
is writable by the operator user. If the script is modified (resulting in a digest mismatch) it will no longer be possible to run
it via sudo.
joe ALL = /usr/bin/su operator
The user joe may only su(1) to operator.
pete HPPA = /usr/bin/passwd [A-Za-z]*, !/usr/bin/passwd *root*
%opers ALL = (: ADMINGRP) /usr/sbin/
Users in the opers group may run commands in /usr/sbin/ as themselves with any group in the ADMINGRP Runas_Alias (the adm and oper
groups).
The user pete is allowed to change anyone's password except for root on the HPPA machines. Because command line arguments are
matched as a single, concatenated string, the `*' wildcard will match multiple words. This example assumes that passwd(1) does not
take multiple user names on the command line. Note that on GNU systems, options to passwd(1) may be specified after the user
argument. As a result, this rule will also allow:
passwd username --expire
which may not be desirable.
bob SPARC = (OP) ALL : SGI = (OP) ALL
The user bob may run anything on the SPARC and SGI machines as any user listed in the OP Runas_Alias (root and operator.)
jim +biglab = ALL
The user jim may run any command on machines in the biglab netgroup. sudo knows that "biglab" is a netgroup due to the `+' prefix.
+secretaries ALL = PRINTING, /usr/bin/adduser, /usr/bin/rmuser
Users in the secretaries netgroup need to help manage the printers as well as add and remove users, so they are allowed to run
those commands on all machines.
fred ALL = (DB) NOPASSWD: ALL
The user fred can run commands as any user in the DB Runas_Alias (oracle or sybase) without giving a password.
john ALPHA = /usr/bin/su [!-]*, !/usr/bin/su *root*
On the ALPHA machines, user john may su to anyone except root but he is not allowed to specify any options to the su(1) command.
jen ALL, !SERVERS = ALL
The user jen may run any command on any machine except for those in the SERVERS Host_Alias (primary, mail, www and ns).
jill SERVERS = /usr/bin/, !SU, !SHELLS
For any machine in the SERVERS Host_Alias, jill may run any commands in the directory /usr/bin/ except for those commands belonging
to the SU and SHELLS Cmnd_Aliases. While not specifically mentioned in the rule, the commands in the PAGERS Cmnd_Alias all reside
in /usr/bin and have the noexec option set.
steve CSNETS = (operator) /usr/local/op_commands/
The user steve may run any command in the directory /usr/local/op_commands/ but only as user operator.
matt valkyrie = KILL
On his personal workstation, valkyrie, matt needs to be able to kill hung processes.
WEBADMIN www = (www) ALL, (root) /usr/bin/su www
On the host www, any user in the WEBADMIN User_Alias (will, wendy, and wim), may run any command as user www (which owns the web
pages) or simply su(1) to www.
ALL CDROM = NOPASSWD: /sbin/umount /CDROM,\
/sbin/mount -o nosuid\,nodev /dev/cd0a /CDROM
Any user may mount or unmount a CD-ROM on the machines in the CDROM Host_Alias (orion, perseus, hercules) without entering a
password. This is a bit tedious for users to type, so it is a prime candidate for encapsulating in a shell script.
SECURITY NOTES
Limitations of the `!' operator
It is generally not effective to "subtract" commands from ALL using the `!' operator. A user can trivially circumvent this by
copying the desired command to a different name and then executing that. For example:
bill ALL = ALL, !SU, !SHELLS
Doesn't really prevent bill from running the commands listed in SU or SHELLS since he can simply copy those commands to a different
name, or use a shell escape from an editor or other program. Therefore, these kind of restrictions should be considered advisory
at best (and reinforced by policy).
In general, if a user has sudo ALL there is nothing to prevent them from creating their own program that gives them a root shell
(or making their own copy of a shell) regardless of any `!' elements in the user specification.
Security implications of fast_glob
If the fast_glob option is in use, it is not possible to reliably negate commands where the path name includes globbing (aka
wildcard) characters. This is because the C library's fnmatch(3) function cannot resolve relative paths. While this is typically
only an inconvenience for rules that grant privileges, it can result in a security issue for rules that subtract or revoke
privileges.
For example, given the following sudoers file entry:
john ALL = /usr/bin/passwd [a-zA-Z0-9]*, /usr/bin/chsh [a-zA-Z0-9]*,\
/usr/bin/chfn [a-zA-Z0-9]*, !/usr/bin/* root
User john can still run /usr/bin/passwd root if fast_glob is enabled by changing to /usr/bin and running ./passwd root instead.
Preventing shell escapes
Once sudo executes a program, that program is free to do whatever it pleases, including run other programs. This can be a security
issue since it is not uncommon for a program to allow shell escapes, which lets a user bypass sudo's access control and logging.
Common programs that permit shell escapes include shells (obviously), editors, paginators, mail and terminal programs.
There are two basic approaches to this problem:
restrict Avoid giving users access to commands that allow the user to run arbitrary commands. Many editors have a restricted mode
where shell escapes are disabled, though sudoedit is a better solution to running editors via sudo. Due to the large
number of programs that offer shell escapes, restricting users to the set of programs that do not is often unworkable.
noexec Many systems that support shared libraries have the ability to override default library functions by pointing an
environment variable (usually LD_PRELOAD) to an alternate shared library. On such systems, sudo's noexec functionality
can be used to prevent a program run by sudo from executing any other programs. Note, however, that this applies only to
dynamically-linked executables. Statically-linked executables and executables running under binary emulation are not
affected.
The noexec feature is known to work on SunOS, Solaris, *BSD, Linux, IRIX, Tru64 UNIX, macOS, HP-UX 11.x and AIX 5.3 and
above. It should be supported on most operating systems that support the LD_PRELOAD environment variable. Check your
operating system's manual pages for the dynamic linker (usually ld.so, ld.so.1, dyld, dld.sl, rld, or loader) to see if
LD_PRELOAD is supported.
On Solaris 10 and higher, noexec uses Solaris privileges instead of the LD_PRELOAD environment variable.
To enable noexec for a command, use the NOEXEC tag as documented in the User Specification section above. Here is that
example again:
aaron shanty = NOEXEC: /usr/bin/more, /usr/bin/vi
This allows user aaron to run /usr/bin/more and /usr/bin/vi with noexec enabled. This will prevent those two commands
from executing other commands (such as a shell). If you are unsure whether or not your system is capable of supporting
noexec you can always just try it out and check whether shell escapes work when noexec is enabled.
Note that restricting shell escapes is not a panacea. Programs running as root are still capable of many potentially hazardous
operations (such as changing or overwriting files) that could lead to unintended privilege escalation. In the specific case of an
editor, a safer approach is to give the user permission to run sudoedit (see below).
Secure editing
The sudoers plugin includes sudoedit support which allows users to securely edit files with the editor of their choice. As
sudoedit is a built-in command, it must be specified in the sudoers file without a leading path. However, it may take command line
arguments just as a normal command does. Wildcards used in sudoedit command line arguments are expected to be path names, so a
forward slash (`/') will not be matched by a wildcard.
Unlike other sudo commands, the editor is run with the permissions of the invoking user and with the environment unmodified. More
information may be found in the description of the -e option in sudo(8).
For example, to allow user operator to edit the "message of the day" file:
operator sudoedit /etc/motd
The operator user then runs sudoedit as follows:
$ sudoedit /etc/motd
The editor will run as the operator user, not root, on a temporary copy of /etc/motd. After the file has been edited, /etc/motd
will be updated with the contents of the temporary copy.
Users should never be granted sudoedit permission to edit a file that resides in a directory the user has write access to, either
directly or via a wildcard. If the user has write access to the directory it is possible to replace the legitimate file with a
link to another file, allowing the editing of arbitrary files. To prevent this, starting with version 1.8.16, symbolic links will
not be followed in writable directories and sudoedit will refuse to edit a file located in a writable directory unless the
sudoedit_checkdir option has been disabled or the invoking user is root. Additionally, in version 1.8.15 and higher, sudoedit will
refuse to open a symbolic link unless either the sudoedit_follow option is enabled or the sudoedit command is prefixed with the
FOLLOW tag in the sudoers file.
Time stamp file checks
sudoers will check the ownership of its time stamp directory (/var/db/sudo/ts by default) and ignore the directory's contents if it
is not owned by root or if it is writable by a user other than root. Older versions of sudo stored time stamp files in /tmp; this
is no longer recommended as it may be possible for a user to create the time stamp themselves on systems that allow unprivileged
users to change the ownership of files they create.
While the time stamp directory should be cleared at reboot time, not all systems contain a /run or /var/run directory. To avoid
potential problems, sudoers will ignore time stamp files that date from before the machine booted on systems where the boot time is
available.
Some systems with graphical desktop environments allow unprivileged users to change the system clock. Since sudoers relies on the
system clock for time stamp validation, it may be possible on such systems for a user to run sudo for longer than timestamp_timeout
by setting the clock back. To combat this, sudoers uses a monotonic clock (which never moves backwards) for its time stamps if the
system supports it.
sudoers will not honor time stamps set far in the future. Time stamps with a date greater than current_time + 2 * TIMEOUT will be
ignored and sudoers will log and complain.
If the timestamp_type option is set to "tty", the time stamp record includes the device number of the terminal the user
authenticated with. This provides per-terminal granularity but time stamp records may still outlive the user's session.
Unless the timestamp_type option is set to "global", the time stamp record also includes the session ID of the process that last
authenticated. This prevents processes in different terminal sessions from using the same time stamp record. On systems where a
process's start time can be queried, the start time of the session leader is recorded in the time stamp record. If no terminal is
present or the timestamp_type option is set to "ppid", the start time of the parent process is used instead. In most cases this
will prevent a time stamp record from being re-used without the user entering a password when logging out and back in again.
DEBUGGING
Versions 1.8.4 and higher of the sudoers plugin support a flexible debugging framework that can help track down what the plugin is
doing internally if there is a problem. This can be configured in the sudo.conf(5) file.
The sudoers plugin uses the same debug flag format as the sudo front-end: subsystem@priority.
The priorities used by sudoers, in order of decreasing severity, are: crit, err, warn, notice, diag, info, trace and debug. Each
priority, when specified, also includes all priorities higher than it. For example, a priority of notice would include debug
messages logged at notice and higher.
The following subsystems are used by the sudoers plugin:
alias User_Alias, Runas_Alias, Host_Alias and Cmnd_Alias processing
all matches every subsystem
audit BSM and Linux audit code
auth user authentication
defaults sudoers file Defaults settings
env environment handling
ldap LDAP-based sudoers
logging logging support
match matching of users, groups, hosts and netgroups in the sudoers file
netif network interface handling
nss network service switch handling in sudoers
parser sudoers file parsing
perms permission setting
plugin The equivalent of main for the plugin.
pty pseudo-terminal related code
rbtree redblack tree internals
sssd SSSD-based sudoers
util utility functions
For example:
Debug sudo /var/log/sudo_debug match@info,nss@info
For more information, see the sudo.conf(5) manual.
SEE ALSO
ssh(1), su(1), fnmatch(3), glob(3), mktemp(3), strftime(3), sudo.conf(5), sudo_plugin(5), sudoers.ldap(5), sudoers_timestamp(5),
sudo(8), visudo(8)
AUTHORS
Many people have worked on sudo over the years; this version consists of code written primarily by:
Todd C. Miller
See the CONTRIBUTORS file in the sudo distribution (https://www.sudo.ws/contributors.html) for an exhaustive list of people who
have contributed to sudo.
CAVEATS
The sudoers file should always be edited by the visudo utility which locks the file and checks for syntax errors. If sudoers
contains syntax errors, sudo may refuse to run, which is a serious problem if sudo is your only method of obtaining superuser
privileges. Recent versions of sudoers will attempt to recover after a syntax error by ignoring the rest of the line after
encountering an error. Older versions of sudo will not run if sudoers contains a syntax error.
When using netgroups of machines (as opposed to users), if you store fully qualified host name in the netgroup (as is usually the
case), you either need to have the machine's host name be fully qualified as returned by the hostname command or use the fqdn
option in sudoers.
BUGS
If you feel you have found a bug in sudo, please submit a bug report at https://bugzilla.sudo.ws/
SUPPORT
Limited free support is available via the sudo-users mailing list, see https://www.sudo.ws/mailman/listinfo/sudo-users to subscribe
or search the archives.
DISCLAIMER
sudo is provided "AS IS" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of
merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. See the LICENSE file distributed with sudo or
https://www.sudo.ws/license.html for complete details.
Sudo 1.9.5p2 January 8, 2020 SUDOERS(5)