Q) Sudo compiles but when I run it I get "Sorry, sudo must be setuid root."
and sudo quits.
A) Sudo must be setuid root to do its work. You need to do something like
- `chmod 4111 /usr/local/bin/sudo'. Also, the filesystem sudo resides
- on must *not* be mounted with the nosuid mount option or sudo will
- not be able to work. Another possibility is you may have '.' in
+ `chmod 4111 /usr/local/bin/sudo'. Also, the file system sudo resides
+ on must *not* be mounted (or exported) with the nosuid option or sudo
+ will not be able to work. Another possibility is you may have '.' in
your $PATH before the directory containing sudo. If you are going
to have '.' in your path you should make sure it is at the end.
-Q) Sudo compiles but when I run it I get "seteuid(0) failed, your operating
- system may have broken POSIX saved ID support\nTry running configure with
- --disable-saved-ids" and sudo quits.
-A) The operating system you are running probably has broken support for
- POSIX saved IDs. You should run configure with the "--disable-saved-ids"
- option and rebuild sudo.
-
Q) Sudo never gives me a chance to enter a password using PAM, it just
- says 'Sorry, try again.' three times and quits.
-A) You didn't setup PAM to work with sudo. On Linux this generally
- means installing sample.pam as /etc/pam.d/sudo.
+ says 'Sorry, try again.' three times and exits.
+A) You didn't setup PAM to work with sudo. On Redhat Linux or Fedora
+ Core this generally means installing sample.pam as /etc/pam.d/sudo.
+ See the sample.pam file for hints on what to use for other Linux
+ systems.
+
+Q) Sudo says 'Account expired or PAM config lacks an "account"
+ section for sudo, contact your system administrator' and exits
+ but I know my account has not expired.
+A) Your PAM config lacks an "account" specification. On Linux this
+ usually means you are missing a line like:
+ account required pam_unix.so
+ in /etc/pam.d/sudo.
Q) Sudo is setup to log via syslog(3) but I'm not getting any log
messages.
A) Someone else is currently editing the sudoers file with visudo.
Q) When I try to use "cd" with sudo it says "cd: command not found".
-A) "cd" is a shell builtin, you can't run it as a command since
- a child process (sudo) cannot affect the current working directory
- of the parent (your shell).
+A) "cd" is a shell built-in command, you can't run it as a command
+ since a child process (sudo) cannot affect the current working
+ directory of the parent (your shell).
Q) When I try to use "cd" with sudo the command completes without
errors but nothing happens.
-A) Some SVR4-derived OS's include a /usr/bin/cd command for reasons
- unfathomable. A "cd" command is totally useless since a child process
- cannot affect the current working directory of the parent (your shell).
-
-Q) When I run sudo it says I am not alllowed to run the command as root
+A) Even though "cd" is a shell built-in command, some operating systems
+ include a /usr/bin/cd command for some reason. A standalone
+ "cd" command is totally useless since a child process (cd) cannot
+ affect the current working directory of the parent (your shell).
+ Thus, "sudo cd /foo" will start a child process, change the
+ directory and immediately exit without doing anything useful.
+
+Q) When I run sudo it says I am not allowed to run the command as root
but I don't want to run it as root, I want to run it as another user.
My sudoers file entry looks like:
bob ALL=(oracle) ALL
Defaults:bob runas_default=oracle
would achieve the desired result ofr the preceding sudoers fragment.
+Q) When I try to run sudo via ssh, I get the error:
+ sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified
+A) ssh does not allocate a tty by default when running a remote command.
+ Without a tty, sudo cannot disable echo when prompting for a password.
+ You can use ssh's "-t" option to force it to allocate a tty.
+ Alternately, if you do not mind your password being echoed to the
+ screen, you can use the "visiblepw" sudoers option to allow this.
+
Q) How do you pronounce `sudo'?
-A) soo-doo (for superuser do).
+A) The official pronunciation is soo-doo (for su "do"). However, an
+ alternate pronunciation, a homophone of "pseudo", is also common.