1 Notes on upgrading from an older release
2 ========================================
4 o Upgrading from a version prior to 1.7.0:
6 Starting with sudo 1.7.0 comments in the sudoers file must not
7 have a digit or minus sign immediately after the comment character
8 ('#'). Otherwise, the comment may be interpreted as a user or
11 When sudo is build with LDAP support the /etc/nsswitch.conf file is
12 now used to determine the sudoers seach order. sudo will default to
13 only using /etc/sudoers unless /etc/nsswitch.conf says otherwise.
14 This can be changed with an nsswitch.conf line, e.g.:
16 Would case LDAP to be searched first, then the sudoers file.
17 To restore the pre-1.7.0 behavior, run configure with the
18 --with-nsswitch=no flag.
20 Sudo now ignores user .ldaprc files as well as system LDAP defaults.
21 All LDAP configuration is now in /etc/ldap.conf (or whichever file
22 was specified by configure's --with-ldap-conf-file option).
23 If you are using TLS, you may now need to specify:
25 in sudo's ldap.conf unless ldap.conf references a valid certificate
28 Please also see the WHATSNEW file for a list of new features in
31 o Upgrading from a version prior to 1.6.9:
33 Starting with sudo 1.6.9, if an OS supports a modular authentication
34 method such as PAM, it will be used by default by configure.
36 Environment variable handling has changed significantly in sudo
37 1.6.9. Prior to version 1.6.9, sudo would preserve the user's
38 environment, pruning out potentially dangerous variables.
39 Beginning with sudo 1.6.9, the envionment is reset to a default
40 set of values with only a small number of "safe" variables
41 preserved. To preserve specific environment variables, add
42 them to the "env_keep" list in sudoers. E.g.
44 Defaults env_keep += "EDITOR"
46 The old behavior can be restored by negating the "env_reset"
47 option in sudoers. E.g.
51 There have also been changes to how the "env_keep" and
52 "env_check" options behave.
54 Prior to sudo 1.6.9, the TERM and PATH environment variables
55 would always be preserved even if the env_keep option was
56 redefined. That is no longer the case. Consequently, if
57 env_keep is set with "=" and not simply appended to (i.e. using
58 "+="), PATH and TERM must be explicitly included in the list
59 of environment variables to keep. The LOGNAME, SHELL, USER,
60 and USERNAME environment variables are still always set.
62 Additionally, the env_check setting previously had no effect
63 when env_reset was set (which is now on by default). Starting
64 with sudo 1.6.9, environment variables listed in env_check are
65 also preserved in the env_reset case, provided that they do not
66 contain a '/' or '%' character. Note that it is not necessary
67 to also list a variable in env_keep--having it in env_check is
70 The default lists of variables to be preserved and/or checked
71 are displayed when sudo is run by root with the -V flag.
73 o Upgrading from a version prior to 1.6.8:
75 Prior to sudo 1.6.8, if /var/run did not exist, sudo would put
76 the timestamp files in /tmp/.odus. As of sudo 1.6.8, the
77 timestamp files will be placed in /var/adm/sudo or /usr/adm/sudo
78 if there is no /var/run directory. This directory will be
79 created if it does not already exist.
81 Previously, a sudoers entry that explicitly prohibited running
82 a command as a certain user did not override a previous entry
83 allowing the same command. This has been fixed in sudo 1.6.8
84 such that the last match is now used (as it is documented).
85 Hopefully no one was depending on the previous (buggy) beghavior.
87 o Upgrading from a version prior to 1.6:
89 As of sudo 1.6, parsing of runas entries and the NOPASSWD tag
90 has changed. Prior to 1.6, a runas specifier applied only to
91 a single command directly following it. Likewise, the NOPASSWD
92 tag only allowed the command directly following it to be run
93 without a password. Starting with sudo 1.6, both the runas
94 specifier and the NOPASSWD tag are "sticky" for an entire
95 command list. So, given the following line in sudo < 1.6
97 millert ALL=(daemon) NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/whoami,/bin/ls
99 millert would be able to run /usr/bin/whoami as user daemon
100 without a password and /bin/ls as root with a password.
102 As of sudo 1.6, the same line now means that millert is able
103 to run run both /usr/bin/whoami and /bin/ls as user daemon
104 without a password. To expand on this, take the following
107 millert ALL=(daemon) NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/whoami, (root) /bin/ls, \
110 millert can run /usr/bin/whoami as daemon and /bin/ls and
111 /sbin/dump as root. No password need be given for either
112 command. In other words, the "(root)" sets the default runas
113 user to root for the rest of the list. If we wanted to require
114 a password for /bin/ls and /sbin/dump the line could be written
117 millert ALL=(daemon) NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/whoami, \
118 (root) PASSWD:/bin/ls, /sbin/dump
120 Additionally, sudo now uses a per-user timestamp directory
121 instead of a timestamp file. This allows tty timestamps to
122 simply be files within the user's timestamp dir. For the
123 default, non-tty case, the timestamp on the directory itself
126 Also, the temporary file used by visudo is now /etc/sudoers.tmp
127 since some versions of vipw on systems with shadow passwords use
128 /etc/stmp for the temporary shadow file.
130 o Upgrading from a version prior to 1.5:
132 By default, sudo expects the sudoers file to be mode 0440 and
133 to be owned by user and group 0. This differs from version 1.4
134 and below which expected the sudoers file to be mode 0400 and
135 to be owned by root. Doing a `make install' will set the sudoers
136 file to the new mode and group. If sudo encounters a sudoers
137 file with the old permissions it will attempt to update it to
138 the new scheme. You cannot, however, use a sudoers file with
139 the new permissions with an old sudo binary. It is suggested
140 that if have a means of distributing sudo you distribute the
141 new binaries first, then the new sudoers file (or you can leave
142 sudoers as is and sudo will fix the permissions itself as long
143 as sudoers is on a local file system).