(OT) sudo question

yelekeri has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: (OT) sudo question by rpanman (Scribe) on Jul 10, 2007 at 16:46 UTC
Erm... not really anything to do with Perl is it? However in the spirit of being helpful :-) The 'su' command changes user credentials to those of the root user or to the user specified (in your case 'tuser') and then initiates a new session - you basically become the specified user and can then execute commands as them. The 'sudo' command allows you to execute commands as another user - this is not the same as above. In order to execute the sudo command your user needs to be defined in the sudoers file (typically stored at /etc/sudoers) - the error messae above is telling you that suser is not defined in this file and so you can't use sudo...	[reply]
Re^2: (OT) sudo question by yelekeri (Novice) on Jul 10, 2007 at 19:31 UTC
Thank you very much guys, I think I know the problem here. I was under the impression that su and sudo are same thing which apprarently is not.	[reply]
Re^3: (OT) sudo question by blazar (Canon) on Jul 11, 2007 at 07:45 UTC
Thank you very much guys, I think I know the problem here. I was under the impression that su and sudo are same thing which apprarently is not. They can have quite similar functionality if you sudo a shell. But then that's not the intended best use of the tool: which is rather, in fact, to execute single "simple" commands as another/super user.	[reply]
Re: (OT) sudo question by Old_Gray_Bear (Bishop) on Jul 10, 2007 at 16:40 UTC
This is actually a `sudo` configuration issue, not a Perl question. From the man page for `sudoers`: `The sudoers file is composed of two types of entries: aliases (basically variables) and user specifications (which specify w +ho may run what).` [download] You need to configure the file `/etc/sudoers` to specify which User-IDs may use `sudo` and which commands each User-ID is allowed to execute under the cover of `sudo`. ---- I Go Back to Sleep, Now. OGB	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: (OT) sudo question by swampyankee (Parson) on Jul 10, 2007 at 16:45 UTC
If you haven't read the sudo and sudoers documentation, I suggest you do so. My quick reading is that the sudoers file restricts who can use sudo and what a specific user can execute. If suser is not in the sudoers file, she\|he can't use sudo. This appears to be what's happening here. emc Any New York City or Connecticut area jobs? I'm currently unemployed. There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method. —Herman Melville	[reply]