SUDO(8)                     System Manager's Manual                    SUDO(8)

NAME
       sudo, sudoedit - execute a command as another user

SYNOPSIS
       sudo -h | -K | -k | -V
       sudo -v [-ABkNnS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-u user]
       sudo -l [-ABkNnS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-U user] [-u user]
            [command [arg_...]]
       sudo [-ABbEHnPS] [-C num] [-D directory] [-g group] [-h host]
            [-p prompt] [-R directory] [-T timeout] [-u user] [VAR=value]
            [-i | -s] [command [arg_...]]
       sudoedit [-ABkNnS] [-C num] [-D directory] [-g group] [-h host]
                [-p prompt] [-R directory] [-T timeout] [-u user] file_...

DESCRIPTION
       sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or
       another user, as specified by the security policy.  The invoking user's
       real (not effective) user-ID is used to determine the user name with
       which to query the security policy.

       sudo supports a plugin architecture for security policies, auditing,
       and input/output logging.  Third parties can develop and distribute
       their own plugins to work seamlessly with the sudo front-end.  The
       default security policy is sudoers, which is configured via the file
       /private/etc/sudoers, or via LDAP.  See the Plugins section for more
       information.

       The security policy determines what privileges, if any, a user has to
       run sudo.  The policy may require that users authenticate themselves
       with a password or another authentication mechanism.  If authentication
       is required, sudo will exit if the user's password is not entered
       within a configurable time limit.  This limit is policy-specific; the
       default password prompt timeout for the sudoers security policy is 0
       minutes.

       Security policies may support credential caching to allow the user to
       run sudo again for a period of time without requiring authentication.
       By default, the sudoers policy caches credentials on a per-terminal
       basis for 5 minutes.  See the timestamp_type and timestamp_timeout
       options in sudoers(5) for more information.  By running sudo with the
       -v option, a user can update the cached credentials without running a
       command.

       On systems where sudo is the primary method of gaining superuser
       privileges, it is imperative to avoid syntax errors in the security
       policy configuration files.  For the default security policy,
       sudoers(5), changes to the configuration files should be made using the
       visudo(8) utility which will ensure that no syntax errors are
       introduced.

       When invoked as sudoedit, the -e option (described below), is implied.

       Security policies and audit plugins may log successful and failed
       attempts to run sudo.  If an I/O plugin is configured, the running
       command's input and output may be logged as well.

       The options are as follows:

       -A, --askpass
               Normally, if sudo requires a password, it will read it from the
               user's terminal.  If the -A (askpass) option is specified, a
               (possibly graphical) helper program is executed to read the
               user's password and output the password to the standard output.
               If the SUDO_ASKPASS environment variable is set, it specifies
               the path to the helper program.  Otherwise, if sudo.conf(5)
               contains a line specifying the askpass program, that value will
               be used.  For example:

                   # Path to askpass helper program
                   Path askpass /usr/X11R6/bin/ssh-askpass

               If no askpass program is available, sudo will exit with an
               error.

       -a type, --auth-type=type
               Use the specified BSD authentication type when validating the
               user, if allowed by /etc/login.conf.  The system administrator
               may specify a list of sudo-specific authentication methods by
               adding an “auth-sudo” entry in /etc/login.conf.  This option is
               only available on systems that support BSD authentication.

       -B, --bell
               Ring the bell as part of the password prompt when a terminal is
               present.  This option has no effect if an askpass program is
               used.

       -b, --background
               Run the given command in the background.  It is not possible to
               use shell job control to manipulate background processes
               started by sudo.  Most interactive commands will fail to work
               properly in background mode.

       -C num, --close-from=num
               Close all file descriptors greater than or equal to num before
               executing a command.  Values less than three are not permitted.
               By default, sudo will close all open file descriptors other
               than standard input, standard output, and standard error when
               executing a command.  The security policy may restrict the
               user's ability to use this option.  The sudoers policy only
               permits use of the -C option when the administrator has enabled
               the closefrom_override option.

       -c class, --login-class=class
               Run the command with resource limits and scheduling priority of
               the specified login class.  The class argument can be either a
               class name as defined in /etc/login.conf, or a single ‘-’
               character.  If class is -, the default login class of the
               target user will be used.  Otherwise, the command must be run
               as the superuser (user-ID 0), or sudo must be run from a shell
               that is already running as the superuser.  If the command is
               being run as a login shell, additional /etc/login.conf
               settings, such as the umask and environment variables, will be
               applied, if present.  This option is only available on systems
               with BSD login classes.

       -D directory, --chdir=directory
               Run the command in the specified directory instead of the
               current working directory.  The security policy may return an
               error if the user does not have permission to specify the
               working directory.

       -E, --preserve-env
               Indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to
               preserve their existing environment variables.  The security
               policy may return an error if the user does not have permission
               to preserve the environment.

       --preserve-env=list
               Indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to add
               the comma-separated list of environment variables to those
               preserved from the user's environment.  The security policy may
               return an error if the user does not have permission to
               preserve the environment.  This option may be specified
               multiple times.

       -e, --edit
               Edit one or more files instead of running a command.  In lieu
               of a path name, the string "sudoedit" is used when consulting
               the security policy.  If the user is authorized by the policy,
               the following steps are taken:

                   1.   Temporary copies are made of the files to be edited
                        with the owner set to the invoking user.

                   2.   The editor specified by the policy is run to edit the
                        temporary files.  The sudoers policy uses the
                        SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables
                        (in that order).  If none of SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL or
                        EDITOR are set, the first program listed in the editor
                        sudoers(5) option is used.

                   3.   If they have been modified, the temporary files are
                        copied back to their original location and the
                        temporary versions are removed.

               To help prevent the editing of unauthorized files, the
               following restrictions are enforced unless explicitly allowed
               by the security policy:

                        •  Symbolic links may not be edited (version 1.8.15
                           and higher).

                        •  Symbolic links along the path to be edited are not
                           followed when the parent directory is writable by
                           the invoking user unless that user is root (version
                           1.8.16 and higher).

                        •  Files located in a directory that is writable by
                           the invoking user may not be edited unless that
                           user is root (version 1.8.16 and higher).

               Users are never allowed to edit device special files.

               If the specified file does not exist, it will be created.
               Unlike most commands run by sudo, the editor is run with the
               invoking user's environment unmodified.  If the temporary file
               becomes empty after editing, the user will be prompted before
               it is installed.  If, for some reason, sudo is unable to update
               a file with its edited version, the user will receive a warning
               and the edited copy will remain in a temporary file.

       -g group, --group=group
               Run the command with the primary group set to group instead of
               the primary group specified by the target user's password
               database entry.  The group may be either a group name or a
               numeric group-ID (GID) prefixed with the ‘#’ character (e.g.,
               ‘#0’ for GID 0).  When running a command as a GID, many shells
               require that the ‘#’ be escaped with a backslash (‘\’).  If no
               -u option is specified, the command will be run as the invoking
               user.  In either case, the primary group will be set to group.
               The sudoers policy permits any of the target user's groups to
               be specified via the -g option as long as the -P option is not
               in use.

       -H, --set-home
               Request that the security policy set the HOME environment
               variable to the home directory specified by the target user's
               password database entry.  Depending on the policy, this may be
               the default behavior.

       -h, --help
               Display a short help message to the standard output and exit.

       -h host, --host=host
               Run the command on the specified host if the security policy
               plugin supports remote commands.  The sudoers plugin does not
               currently support running remote commands.  This may also be
               used in conjunction with the -l option to list a user's
               privileges for the remote host.

       -i, --login
               Run the shell specified by the target user's password database
               entry as a login shell.  This means that login-specific
               resource files such as .profile, .bash_profile, or .login will
               be read by the shell.  If a command is specified, it is passed
               to the shell as a simple command using the -c option.  The
               command and any args are concatenated, separated by spaces,
               after escaping each character (including white space) with a
               backslash (‘\’) except for alphanumerics, underscores, hyphens,
               and dollar signs.  If no command is specified, an interactive
               shell is executed.  sudo attempts to change to that user's home
               directory before running the shell.  The command is run with an
               environment similar to the one a user would receive at log in.
               Most shells behave differently when a command is specified as
               compared to an interactive session; consult the shell's manual
               for details.  The Command environment section in the sudoers(5)
               manual documents how the -i option affects the environment in
               which a command is run when the sudoers policy is in use.

       -K, --remove-timestamp
               Similar to the -k option, except that it removes every cached
               credential for the user, regardless of the terminal or parent
               process ID.  The next time sudo is run, a password must be
               entered if the security policy requires authentication.  It is
               not possible to use the -K option in conjunction with a command
               or other option.  This option does not require a password.  Not
               all security policies support credential caching.

       -k, --reset-timestamp
               When used without a command, invalidates the user's cached
               credentials for the current session.  The next time sudo is run
               in the session, a password must be entered if the security
               policy requires authentication.  By default, the sudoers policy
               uses a separate record in the credential cache for each
               terminal (or parent process ID if no terminal is present).
               This prevents the -k option from interfering with sudo commands
               run in a different terminal session.  See the timestamp_type
               option in sudoers(5) for more information.  This option does
               not require a password, and was added to allow a user to revoke
               sudo permissions from a .logout file.

               When used in conjunction with a command or an option that may
               require a password, this option will cause sudo to ignore the
               user's cached credentials.  As a result, sudo will prompt for a
               password (if one is required by the security policy) and will
               not update the user's cached credentials.

               Not all security policies support credential caching.

       -l, --list
               If no command is specified, list the privileges for the
               invoking user (or the user specified by the -U option) on the
               current host.  A longer list format is used if this option is
               specified multiple times and the security policy supports a
               verbose output format.

               If a command is specified and is permitted by the security
               policy, the fully-qualified path to the command is displayed
               along with any args.  If a command is specified but not allowed
               by the policy, sudo will exit with a status value of 1.

       -N, --no-update
               Do not update the user's cached credentials, even if the user
               successfully authenticates.  Unlike the -k flag, existing
               cached credentials are used if they are valid.  To detect when
               the user's cached credentials are valid (or when no
               authentication is required), the following can be used:
                     sudo -Nnv

               Not all security policies support credential caching.

       -n, --non-interactive
               Avoid prompting the user for input of any kind.  If a password
               is required for the command to run, sudo will display an error
               message and exit.

       -P, --preserve-groups
               Preserve the invoking user's group vector unaltered.  By
               default, the sudoers policy will initialize the group vector to
               the list of groups the target user is a member of.  The real
               and effective group-IDs, however, are still set to match the
               target user.

       -p prompt, --prompt=prompt
               Use a custom password prompt with optional escape sequences.
               The following percent (‘%’) escape sequences are supported by
               the sudoers policy:

               %H  expanded to the host name including the domain name (only
                   if the machine's host name is fully qualified or the fqdn
                   option is set in sudoers(5))

               %h  expanded to the local host name without the domain name

               %p  expanded to the name of the user whose password is being
                   requested (respects the rootpw, targetpw, and runaspw flags
                   in sudoers(5))

               %U  expanded to the login name of the user the command will be
                   run as (defaults to root unless the -u option is also
                   specified)

               %u  expanded to the invoking user's login name

               %%  two consecutive ‘%’ characters are collapsed into a single
                   ‘%’ character

               The custom prompt will override the default prompt specified by
               either the security policy or the SUDO_PROMPT environment
               variable.  On systems that use PAM, the custom prompt will also
               override the prompt specified by a PAM module unless the
               passprompt_override flag is disabled in sudoers.

       -R directory, --chroot=directory
               Change to the specified root directory (see chroot(8)) before
               running the command.  The security policy may return an error
               if the user does not have permission to specify the root
               directory.

       -r role, --role=role
               Run the command with an SELinux security context that includes
               the specified role.

       -S, --stdin
               Write the prompt to the standard error and read the password
               from the standard input instead of using the terminal device.

       -s, --shell
               Run the shell specified by the SHELL environment variable if it
               is set or the shell specified by the invoking user's password
               database entry.  If a command is specified, it is passed to the
               shell as a simple command using the -c option.  The command and
               any args are concatenated, separated by spaces, after escaping
               each character (including white space) with a backslash (‘\’)
               except for alphanumerics, underscores, hyphens, and dollar
               signs.  If no command is specified, an interactive shell is
               executed.  Most shells behave differently when a command is
               specified as compared to an interactive session; consult the
               shell's manual for details.

       -t type, --type=type
               Run the command with an SELinux security context that includes
               the specified type.  If no type is specified, the default type
               is derived from the role.

       -U user, --other-user=user
               Used in conjunction with the -l option to list the privileges
               for user instead of for the invoking user.  The security policy
               may restrict listing other users' privileges.  When using the
               sudoers policy, the -U option is restricted to the root user
               and users with either the “list” priviege for the specified
               user or the ability to run any command as root or user on the
               current host.

       -T timeout, --command-timeout=timeout
               Used to set a timeout for the command.  If the timeout expires
               before the command has exited, the command will be terminated.
               The security policy may restrict the user's ability to set
               timeouts.  The sudoers policy requires that user-specified
               timeouts be explicitly enabled.

       -u user, --user=user
               Run the command as a user other than the default target user
               (usually root).  The user may be either a user name or a
               numeric user-ID (UID) prefixed with the ‘#’ character (e.g.,
               ‘#0’ for UID 0).  When running commands as a UID, many shells
               require that the ‘#’ be escaped with a backslash (‘\’).  Some
               security policies may restrict UIDs to those listed in the
               password database.  The sudoers policy allows UIDs that are not
               in the password database as long as the targetpw option is not
               set.  Other security policies may not support this.

       -V, --version
               Print the sudo version string as well as the version string of
               any configured plugins.  If the invoking user is already root,
               the -V option will display the options passed to configure when
               sudo was built; plugins may display additional information such
               as default options.

       -v, --validate
               Update the user's cached credentials, authenticating the user
               if necessary.  For the sudoers plugin, this extends the sudo
               timeout for another 5 minutes by default, but does not run a
               command.  Not all security policies support cached credentials.

       --      The -- is used to delimit the end of the sudo options.
               Subsequent options are passed to the command.

       Options that take a value may only be specified once unless otherwise
       indicated in the description.  This is to help guard against problems
       caused by poorly written scripts that invoke sudo with user-controlled
       input.

       Environment variables to be set for the command may also be passed as
       options to sudo in the form VAR=value, for example
       LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/pkg/lib.  Environment variables may be
       subject to restrictions imposed by the security policy plugin.  The
       sudoers policy subjects environment variables passed as options to the
       same restrictions as existing environment variables with one important
       difference.  If the setenv option is set in sudoers, the command to be
       run has the SETENV tag set or the command matched is ALL, the user may
       set variables that would otherwise be forbidden.  See sudoers(5) for
       more information.

COMMAND EXECUTION
       When sudo executes a command, the security policy specifies the
       execution environment for the command.  Typically, the real and
       effective user and group and IDs are set to match those of the target
       user, as specified in the password database, and the group vector is
       initialized based on the group database (unless the -P option was
       specified).

       The following parameters may be specified by security policy:

       •  real and effective user-ID

       •  real and effective group-ID

       •  supplementary group-IDs

       •  the environment list

       •  current working directory

       •  file creation mode mask (umask)

       •  scheduling priority (aka nice value)

   Process model
       There are two distinct ways sudo can run a command.

       If an I/O logging plugin is configured to log terminal I/O, or if the
       security policy explicitly requests it, a new pseudo-terminal (“pty”)
       is allocated and fork(2) is used to create a second sudo process,
       referred to as the monitor.  The monitor creates a new terminal session
       with itself as the leader and the pty as its controlling terminal,
       calls fork(2) again, sets up the execution environment as described
       above, and then uses the execve(2) system call to run the command in
       the child process.  The monitor exists to relay job control signals
       between the user's terminal and the pty the command is being run in.
       This makes it possible to suspend and resume the command normally.
       Without the monitor, the command would be in what POSIX terms an
       “orphaned process group” and it would not receive any job control
       signals from the kernel.  When the command exits or is terminated by a
       signal, the monitor passes the command's exit status to the main sudo
       process and exits.  After receiving the command's exit status, the main
       sudo process passes the command's exit status to the security policy's
       close function, as well as the close function of any configured audit
       plugin, and exits.

       If no pty is used, sudo calls fork(2), sets up the execution
       environment as described above, and uses the execve(2) system call to
       run the command in the child process.  The main sudo process waits
       until the command has completed, then passes the command's exit status
       to the security policy's close function, as well as the close function
       of any configured audit plugins, and exits.  As a special case, if the
       policy plugin does not define a close function, sudo will execute the
       command directly instead of calling fork(2) first.  The sudoers policy
       plugin will only define a close function when I/O logging is enabled, a
       pty is required, an SELinux role is specified, the command has an
       associated timeout, or the pam_session or pam_setcred options are
       enabled.  Both pam_session and pam_setcred are enabled by default on
       systems using PAM.

       On systems that use PAM, the security policy's close function is
       responsible for closing the PAM session.  It may also log the command's
       exit status.

   Signal handling
       When the command is run as a child of the sudo process, sudo will relay
       signals it receives to the command.  The SIGINT and SIGQUIT signals are
       only relayed when the command is being run in a new pty or when the
       signal was sent by a user process, not the kernel.  This prevents the
       command from receiving SIGINT twice each time the user enters control-
       C.  Some signals, such as SIGSTOP and SIGKILL, cannot be caught and
       thus will not be relayed to the command.  As a general rule, SIGTSTP
       should be used instead of SIGSTOP when you wish to suspend a command
       being run by sudo.

       As a special case, sudo will not relay signals that were sent by the
       command it is running.  This prevents the command from accidentally
       killing itself.  On some systems, the reboot(8) utility sends SIGTERM
       to all non-system processes other than itself before rebooting the
       system.  This prevents sudo from relaying the SIGTERM signal it
       received back to reboot(8), which might then exit before the system was
       actually rebooted, leaving it in a half-dead state similar to single
       user mode.  Note, however, that this check only applies to the command
       run by sudo and not any other processes that the command may create.
       As a result, running a script that calls reboot(8) or shutdown(8) via
       sudo may cause the system to end up in this undefined state unless the
       reboot(8) or shutdown(8) are run using the exec() family of functions
       instead of system() (which interposes a shell between the command and
       the calling process).

   Plugins
       Plugins may be specified via Plugin directives in the sudo.conf(5)
       file.  They may be loaded as dynamic shared objects (on systems that
       support them), or compiled directly into the sudo binary.  If no
       sudo.conf(5) file is present, or if it doesn't contain any Plugin
       lines, sudo will use sudoers(5) for the policy, auditing, and I/O
       logging plugins.  See the sudo.conf(5) manual for details of the
       /private/etc/sudo.conf file and the sudo_plugin(5) manual for more
       information about the sudo plugin architecture.

EXIT VALUE
       Upon successful execution of a command, the exit status from sudo will
       be the exit status of the program that was executed.  If the command
       terminated due to receipt of a signal, sudo will send itself the same
       signal that terminated the command.

       If the -l option was specified without a command, sudo will exit with a
       value of 0 if the user is allowed to run sudo and they authenticated
       successfully (as required by the security policy).  If a command is
       specified with the -l option, the exit value will only be 0 if the
       command is permitted by the security policy, otherwise it will be 1.

       If there is an authentication failure, a configuration/permission
       problem, or if the given command cannot be executed, sudo exits with a
       value of 1.  In the latter case, the error string is printed to the
       standard error.  If sudo cannot stat(2) one or more entries in the
       user's PATH, an error is printed to the standard error.  (If the
       directory does not exist or if it is not really a directory, the entry
       is ignored and no error is printed.)  This should not happen under
       normal circumstances.  The most common reason for stat(2) to return
       “permission denied” is if you are running an automounter and one of the
       directories in your PATH is on a machine that is currently unreachable.

SECURITY NOTES
       sudo tries to be safe when executing external commands.

       To prevent command spoofing, sudo checks "." and "" (both denoting
       current directory) last when searching for a command in the user's PATH
       (if one or both are in the PATH).  Depending on the security policy,
       the user's PATH environment variable may be modified, replaced, or
       passed unchanged to the program that sudo executes.

       Users should never be granted sudo privileges to execute files that are
       writable by the user or that reside in a directory that is writable by
       the user.  If the user can modify or replace the command there is no
       way to limit what additional commands they can run.

       By default, sudo will only log the command it explicitly runs.  If a
       user runs a command such as ‘sudo su’ or ‘sudo sh’, subsequent commands
       run from that shell are not subject to sudo's security policy.  The
       same is true for commands that offer shell escapes (including most
       editors).  If I/O logging is enabled, subsequent commands will have
       their input and/or output logged, but there will not be traditional
       logs for those commands.  Because of this, care must be taken when
       giving users access to commands via sudo to verify that the command
       does not inadvertently give the user an effective root shell.  For
       information on ways to address this, see the Preventing shell escapes
       section in sudoers(5).

       To prevent the disclosure of potentially sensitive information, sudo
       disables core dumps by default while it is executing (they are re-
       enabled for the command that is run).  This historical practice dates
       from a time when most operating systems allowed set-user-ID processes
       to dump core by default.  To aid in debugging sudo crashes, you may
       wish to re-enable core dumps by setting “disable_coredump” to false in
       the sudo.conf(5) file as follows:

           Set disable_coredump false

       See the sudo.conf(5) manual for more information.

ENVIRONMENT
       sudo utilizes the following environment variables.  The security policy
       has control over the actual content of the command's environment.

       EDITOR           Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode if neither
                        SUDO_EDITOR nor VISUAL is set.

       MAIL             Set to the mail spool of the target user when the -i
                        option is specified, or when env_reset is enabled in
                        sudoers (unless MAIL is present in the env_keep list).

       HOME             Set to the home directory of the target user when the
                        -i or -H options are specified, when the -s option is
                        specified and set_home is set in sudoers, when
                        always_set_home is enabled in sudoers, or when
                        env_reset is enabled in sudoers and HOME is not
                        present in the env_keep list.

       LOGNAME          Set to the login name of the target user when the -i
                        option is specified, when the set_logname option is
                        enabled in sudoers, or when the env_reset option is
                        enabled in sudoers (unless LOGNAME is present in the
                        env_keep list).

       PATH             May be overridden by the security policy.

       SHELL            Used to determine shell to run with -s option.

       SUDO_ASKPASS     Specifies the path to a helper program used to read
                        the password if no terminal is available or if the -A
                        option is specified.

       SUDO_COMMAND     Set to the command run by sudo, including any args.
                        The args are truncated at 4096 characters to prevent a
                        potential execution error.

       SUDO_EDITOR      Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode.

       SUDO_GID         Set to the group-ID of the user who invoked sudo.

       SUDO_PROMPT      Used as the default password prompt unless the -p
                        option was specified.

       SUDO_PS1         If set, PS1 will be set to its value for the program
                        being run.

       SUDO_UID         Set to the user-ID of the user who invoked sudo.

       SUDO_USER        Set to the login name of the user who invoked sudo.

       USER             Set to the same value as LOGNAME, described above.

       VISUAL           Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode if
                        SUDO_EDITOR is not set.

FILES
       /private/etc/sudo.conf    sudo front-end configuration

EXAMPLES
       The following examples assume a properly configured security policy.

       To get a file listing of an unreadable directory:

           $ sudo ls /usr/local/protected

       To list the home directory of user yaz on a machine where the file
       system holding ~yaz is not exported as root:

           $ sudo -u yaz ls ~yaz

       To edit the index.html file as user www:

           $ sudoedit -u www ~www/htdocs/index.html

       To view system logs only accessible to root and users in the adm group:

           $ sudo -g adm more /var/log/syslog

       To run an editor as jim with a different primary group:

           $ sudoedit -u jim -g audio ~jim/sound.txt

       To shut down a machine:

           $ sudo shutdown -r +15 "quick reboot"

       To make a usage listing of the directories in the /home partition.  The
       commands are run in a sub-shell to allow the ‘cd’ command and file
       redirection to work.

           $ sudo sh -c "cd /home ; du -s * | sort -rn > USAGE"

DIAGNOSTICS
       Error messages produced by sudo include:

       editing files in a writable directory is not permitted
             By default, sudoedit does not permit editing a file when any of
             the parent directories are writable by the invoking user.  This
             avoids a race condition that could allow the user to overwrite an
             arbitrary file.  See the sudoedit_checkdir option in sudoers(5)
             for more information.

       editing symbolic links is not permitted
             By default, sudoedit does not follow symbolic links when opening
             files.  See the sudoedit_follow option in sudoers(5) for more
             information.

       effective uid is not 0, is sudo installed setuid root?
             sudo was not run with root privileges.  The sudo binary must be
             owned by the root user and have the set-user-ID bit set.  Also,
             it must not be located on a file system mounted with the ‘nosuid’
             option or on an NFS file system that maps uid 0 to an
             unprivileged uid.

       effective uid is not 0, is sudo on a file system with the 'nosuid'
       option set or an NFS file system without root privileges?
             sudo was not run with root privileges.  The sudo binary has the
             proper owner and permissions but it still did not run with root
             privileges.  The most common reason for this is that the file
             system the sudo binary is located on is mounted with the ‘nosuid’
             option or it is an NFS file system that maps uid 0 to an
             unprivileged uid.

       fatal error, unable to load plugins
             An error occurred while loading or initializing the plugins
             specified in sudo.conf(5).

       invalid environment variable name
             One or more environment variable names specified via the -E
             option contained an equal sign (‘=’).  The arguments to the -E
             option should be environment variable names without an associated
             value.

       no password was provided
             When sudo tried to read the password, it did not receive any
             characters.  This may happen if no terminal is available (or the
             -S option is specified) and the standard input has been
             redirected from /dev/null.

       a terminal is required to read the password
             sudo needs to read the password but there is no mechanism
             available for it to do so.  A terminal is not present to read the
             password from, sudo has not been configured to read from the
             standard input, the -S option was not used, and no askpass helper
             has been specified either via the sudo.conf(5) file or the
             SUDO_ASKPASS environment variable.

       no writable temporary directory found
             sudoedit was unable to find a usable temporary directory in which
             to store its intermediate files.

       The “no new privileges” flag is set, which prevents sudo from running
       as root.
             sudo was run by a process that has the Linux “no new privileges”
             flag is set.  This causes the set-user-ID bit to be ignored when
             running an executable, which will prevent sudo from functioning.
             The most likely cause for this is running sudo within a container
             that sets this flag.  Check the documentation to see if it is
             possible to configure the container such that the flag is not
             set.

       sudo must be owned by uid 0 and have the setuid bit set
             sudo was not run with root privileges.  The sudo binary does not
             have the correct owner or permissions.  It must be owned by the
             root user and have the set-user-ID bit set.

       sudoedit is not supported on this platform
             It is only possible to run sudoedit on systems that support
             setting the effective user-ID.

       timed out reading password
             The user did not enter a password before the password timeout (5
             minutes by default) expired.

       you do not exist in the passwd database
             Your user-ID does not appear in the system passwd database.

       you may not specify environment variables in edit mode
             It is only possible to specify environment variables when running
             a command.  When editing a file, the editor is run with the
             user's environment unmodified.

SEE ALSO
       su(1), stat(2), login_cap(3), passwd(5), sudo.conf(5), sudo_plugin(5),
       sudoers(5), sudoers_timestamp(5), sudoreplay(8), visudo(8)

HISTORY
       See the HISTORY.md file in the sudo distribution
       (https://www.sudo.ws/about/history/) for a brief history of sudo.

AUTHORS
       Many people have worked on sudo over the years; this version consists
       of code written primarily by:

             Todd C. Miller

       See the CONTRIBUTORS.md file in the sudo distribution
       (https://www.sudo.ws/about/contributors/) for an exhaustive list of
       people who have contributed to sudo.

CAVEATS
       There is no easy way to prevent a user from gaining a root shell if
       that user is allowed to run arbitrary commands via sudo.  Also, many
       programs (such as editors) allow the user to run commands via shell
       escapes, thus avoiding sudo's checks.  However, on most systems it is
       possible to prevent shell escapes with the sudoers(5) plugin's noexec
       functionality.

       It is not meaningful to run the ‘cd’ command directly via sudo, e.g.,

           $ sudo cd /usr/local/protected

       since when the command exits the parent process (your shell) will still
       be the same.  The -D option can be used to run a command in a specific
       directory.

       Running shell scripts via sudo can expose the same kernel bugs that
       make set-user-ID shell scripts unsafe on some operating systems (if
       your OS has a /dev/fd/ directory, set-user-ID shell scripts are
       generally safe).

BUGS
       If you believe you have found a bug in sudo, you can 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.md file distributed with sudo or
       https://www.sudo.ws/about/license/ for complete details.

Sudo 1.9.13p2                  January 16, 2023                        SUDO(8)