sudo and su

[wibedo]

If I want to execute a command as root, VL will not accept the password.
If I use "su root", I can input the root-password and it will be accepted.
Is this okay?

[bigpaws]

That is fine. You do not need to name root if you use
su alone.

Bigpaws

[Triarius Fidelis]

If I want to execute a command as root, VL will not accept the password.
If I use "su root", I can input the root-password and it will be accepted.
Is this okay?

sudo requires more configuration than su. As I rule, I only use sudo for non-interactive tasks where a normal user has to do something that requires root privileges, and it would be inconvenient (or impossible) to type the root password every time.

[caitlyn]

One of the big advantages of sudo is that it logs the commands you run with it.  I've occasionally done something stupid and caused breakage on my system.  Looking through my log and seeing what command I ran has saved me a lot of time and effort.

You need to do the following to make sudo work for you:

1.  Add your account to the wheel group.
2.  Open a terminal window and su to root.
3.  As root, run visudo.  This will bring up a special instance of the vi editor designed to work with your sudoers (sudo configuration) file.  Don't worry about the complexity of the file in front of you.  You only have to make a tiny, easy one character change.  Type in:

/wheel

and hit enter.  That tells visudo to search for "wheel" and take you to the first occurrence.  You'll see a section like this towards the middle of the screen:

Code:

##
# User specification
##

# root and users in group wheel can run anything on any machine as any user
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
#%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Use your arrow keys (NOT your mouse) to position your cursor over the first character in the line

Code:

#%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Type x

That's lower case x, no return.  The leading # should disappear and the line should now read:

Code:

%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

If so type in:

 :wq

and hit enter.  Your account will now work with sudo.

One caution:  NEVER use any editor besides visudo to edit your sudoers file.  By design that will damage the file and may render it useless.  vi and visudo aren't easy for people who aren't used to them but you really don't have a choice in this case unless you go through far more complicated steps than what I just described.

Good luck!

[wcs]

One caution:  NEVER use any editor besides visudo to edit your sudoers file.  By design that will damage the file and may render it useless.

Oh, I didn't know that... I've seen the recommendation for using visudo before, but never thought it was an absolute requirement.

I've edited /etc/sudoers a couple of times using mousepad and medit, and it worked (meaning, it did what I wanted it to do).
Could I have messed up something else?! 

[caitlyn]

You probably didn't mess anything up.  visudo is, according to the sudo documentation, an absolute requirement.  Forcing you to use a special editor is supposed to be a security enhancement.

Interestingly enough visudo doesn't have to be vi.  You can configure sudo to use another editor as visudo and have it accepted.  I've seen nano used as a substitute in a distro that didn't include vi as part of the default installation.

[wcs]

You probably didn't mess anything up

Good to know. So far it's working.

Interestingly enough visudo doesn't have to be vi.

Oh, that's better. I'm much more comfortable with nano.
I'm sure I would learn to enjoy the power of vi, but it's just too much at first sight...

[rbistolfi]

AFAIK, the only thing visudo does is to not allow a saving if the file has not the proper sudoers format. It is a good feature, since a bad sudoers would leave you without a working login. That said, I use regular vim to edit it, I am a dangerous man

[wcs]

Thanks. I only inserted a couple of lines in the middle of it, so it seems to be fine.

[Joe1962]

Using visudo is safe, because, as already stated, it checks the syntaxis of the sudoers file before saving. It is not, however a requirement, I only used visudo once, a long time ago, then ran off to more familiar editors. I've used mostly mcedit, kedit and kate, but also a few others.

[exeterdad]

Until they come out with a mousepadsudo or meditsudo, I'm gonna have to live dangerously. I mess up more stuff with vi