LINUX 50 Most Used Linux Commands: SUDO

sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user, as specified by the security policy.

sudo supports a plugin architecture for security policies and input/output logging. Third parties can develop and distribute their own policy and I/O logging plugins to work seamlessly with the sudo front end. The default security policy is sudoers, which is configured via the file /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 5 minutes.

Security policies may support credential caching to allow the user to run sudo again for a period of time without requiring authentication. The sudoers policy caches credentials for 5 minutes, unless overridden in sudoers. By running sudo with the -v option, a user can update the cached credentials without running a command.