Re: sudoers mistake

Top Page
Attachments:
Message as email
+ (text/plain)
+ (text/html)
+ (text/plain)
Delete this message
Reply to this message
Author: Kevin Fries
Date:  
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: sudoers mistake
Mike,

Leave your sudoers file alone and add your user to the sudo group
instead. Much more flexible.

Kevin
On Jul 4, 2013 4:28 PM, "Michael Havens" <> wrote:

> I wanted to add my user to the sudoers file so I typed in 'visudo. and put
> my userid where I figure it should go. Now whenever I type 'sudo <?>' the
> output of the shell is:
>
> bmike1@PresarioLapTop1:/home$ sudo mkdir /backups
> sudo: parse error in /etc/sudoers near line 14
> sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
> sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin
>
>
> so I think I'll go in and put it the way it was:
>
> bmike1@PresarioLapTop1:/home$ sudo visudo
> sudo: parse error in /etc/sudoers near line 14
> sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
> sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin
>
> Here is the sudoers file:
>
> #
> # This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
> #
> # Please consider adding local content in /etc/sudoers.d/ instead of
> # directly modifying this file.
> #
> # See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
> #
> Defaults        env_reset
> Defaults        mail_badpass
> Defaults
>  secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

>
> # Host alias specification
> bmike1
>
> # User alias specification
>
> # Cmnd alias specification
>
> # User privilege specification
> root    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

>
> # Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
> %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL
>
> # Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
> %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
>
> # See sudoers(5) for more information on "#include" directives:
>
> #includedir /etc/sudoers.d
>
> HEY! Look at that. I put my user in the wrong space. I meant to put it
> under '# User alias specification' but now I see that is wrong; I needed to
> put it under '# User privilege specification'.
> Also, what about the "ALL's". What do they mean?
> Can I fix this with VI? I'm not just doing it because I don't want to mess
> this up so bad I need to reinstall
> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Michael Havens <> wrote:
>
>>
>>> Okay Matt (or anyone else who wants to answer this), could I do this:
>> first I make a directory in the usb called 'bmike1-backup'
>>
>> #!/bin/bash
>> sudo mkdir /backups <-create backups dir
>> sudo mount /sdc1/backup-bmike1 /backups <- tell computer to see a
>> directory in the usb drive as /backups
>> rsync -av /home/bmike1
>> sudo umount backups; sudo rmdir backups <-make everything like it was
>>
>>
>>> On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Matt Graham <>wrote:
>>>
>>>> 1. Plug this disk in. Usually, removable disks have 1 partition of
>>>> type FAT32
>>>> or NTFS covering their whole space. (Check that this is the case, if
>>>> not,
>>>> something weird may be going on.)
>>>>
>>>> 2. Make a filesystem with a label on this partition. "mke2fs -j -L
>>>> MY_BACKUPS
>>>> /dev/sdN1" . Find what N is by looking at the output of dmesg | tail.
>>>>
>>>> 3. Make an entry for the partition you made in your /etc/fstab :
>>>>
>>>> LABEL=MY_BACKUPS /mnt/backup ext3 noauto,users,noatime 0 0
>>>>
>>>> 4. As root, mkdir /mnt/backup if it doesn't exist, then mount this
>>>> partition
>>>> on /mnt/backup , mkdir /mnt/backup/USER , and chown USER
>>>> /mnt/backup/USER .
>>>>
>>>> 5. Make a shell script sort of like this:
>>>>
>>>> #!/bin/bash
>>>> if [[ $1 == '--help' || $1 == '-h' ]] ; then
>>>>     echo "backs up ~USER to backup drive."
>>>>     exit;
>>>> fi

>>>>
>>>> if mount | grep /mnt/backup > /dev/null ; then
>>>>     rsync -av --delete-after /home/USER/ /mnt/backup/USER
>>>> else
>>>>     echo "backup disk not mounted.  Trying to mount it."
>>>>     mount /mnt/backup
>>>>     if mount | grep /mnt/backup > /dev/null ; then
>>>>          echo "Is the disk plugged in?  Can't mount, bailing."
>>>>          exit 1
>>>>     fi
>>>>     rsync -av --delete-after /home/USER/ /mnt/backup/USER
>>>>     umount /mnt/backup
>>>> fi

>>>>
>>>> 6. Any time you want to make a backup, plug your disk in, and run that
>>>> shell
>>>> script. The initial rsync will take some time. Subsequent rsyncs will
>>>> take a
>>>> couple of minutes.
>>>>
>>>> This is AFAICT a reasonably good way to do things, because it doesn't
>>>> take a
>>>> lot of time to keep your backup up to date, and restoring is as simple
>>>> as
>>>> mounting the backup disk and copying things over. Since there is only 1
>>>> backup, though, you could delete something, make a backup, then realize
>>>> you
>>>> needed that thing. I have 2 backup disks and rotate them every few
>>>> days to
>>>> make that less likely.
>>>>
>>>> You could even get fancy and use dm-crypt to back up your stuff to an
>>>> encrypted disk, which is useful in some situations like when you want
>>>> to leave
>>>> the disk somewhere that's not under your direct control like a friend's
>>>> house.
>>>> Using dm-crypt makes things a bit more complex, but I can write another
>>>> message about that.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Matt G / Dances With Crows
>>>> The Crow202 Blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress/
>>>> There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>>> PLUG-discuss mailing list -
>>>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>>>> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list -
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>

---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list -
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss