ubuntu & sudu

[Joseph Sinclair]

The command is "sudo", note the ending o.  It stands for "set UID and do" and is available on nearly all Linux systems. (the common pronunciation is more like sue-due, hence the probable confusion).
It offers functionality very similar to the immensely popular "powerbroker" in common use in AIX and Solaris shops.

For the curious, sudo sets the effective UID of the process to 0, then executes the remainder of the given command line (not including piped or catenated commands).
For example, "sudo ls" would run ls as root, without launching a separate shell or requiring the user to know the root password (if any).  the /etc/sudoers file allows the system administrator to grant sudo access with very
fine-grained permissions to specific actions or types of actions on a per-user and/or per-group basis.  It's a really nice tool, definitely worth examining, regardless of your distribution.

In Ubuntu, they've disabled direct login as root, so "su -" doesn't work directly, however if a full shell is needed, then "sudo su -" works just fine, and maintains the no-shared-accounts rule of secure system administration.

==Joseph++

Mark Jarvis wrote:
> After seeing the many comments about ubuntu and having some free space
> on one of my drives I decided to install ubuntu and have a look. I used
> pre-existing swap & /home partitions. Having heard that ubuntu didn't
> like root login or su -, I found and read some comments about ubuntu &
> sudu on the ubuntu site. (I don't agree with their philosophy, but can
> see why they did things that way and can live with it.)
> 
> My problem? I've tried both the 5.10 Breezy Badger Preview and 5.04
> Hoary Hedgehog (love those names)--and on both, when I bring up a
> terminal window and type sudu (anything), I get the message that sudu is
> not found! "/sbin/sudu", man sudu, and "find / -name sudu" all failed to
> find a trace of sudu!
> 
> What the !@#$%^ am I doing/not doing that sudu is in hiding?
> 
> -mj-
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