Talk:Sudo

Is this just adapted from the man page? :/ Nile 16:01, 2004 Oct 15 (UTC)

License?

The page says sudo is under a BSD-style license, But http://www.sudo.ws/ clearly states it's under an ISC-style license..

Examples

Some examples would be really great

An example could be: sudo ifconfig,...

Is it "substitute user do" or "superuser do"?

http://www.sudo.ws/ says it's "superuser do". Most other references I have seen say it's "substitute user do", but this may be historical revisionism, so to say. Both expansions of sudo are apparently widely used, so perhaps the article should just explain this? —Tobias Bergemann 16:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Todd should know what he's talking about, so I'll trust superuser do. Janizary 21:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately in this case, Todd doesn't know what he's talking about. It's one of the most incorrectly used terms in UNIX. The original command is "su" which stands for "substitute user." People call it "super user" because you generally use the "su" command to obtain root privileges. However the "su" command is literally used to substitute users, and it doesn't have to be root. Commonly developers "su" to application accounts and so forth. Sudo is a play on the "su" command by appending the verb "do." Seeing that sudo allows you to perform commands as other users, including non-root users, by definition it's "substitute user do." In my opinion the term "super user" is poor adjective for the real term "root user." The original intent was clear enough without using another adjective to describe it, which changes the definition. Dhanks 03:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is there some reference that states that sudo's name is tied to su? User:pottmi 08:23, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the complete and exact text from Todd Miller to me July 25, 2006:'The correct pronunciation is sue due / soo doo for "superuser do".' User:pottmi 08:23, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

could some one please disamb 'Titan' (runas - as part of Titan)

safty with sudo

Mentioning visudo as a safe way to edit /etc/sudoers ~~would be~~ is a good idea. If you use another text editor and make a typo, you could corrupt the sudoers file, preventing sudo access for everyone! Perhaps calling this out a bit more could save some problems. Pockeyman 00:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also I feel that a note about command side effects should be mentioned. For instance, it might be good to give a reminder that vi or emacs have shell escape modes. So by giving sudo access to these programs, the users have shell with root privs! Pockeyman 00:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Advantages, problems

I'm fairly happy with changes I've just done, but there really needs to be an "Advantages" section highlighting *why* sudo is used, and it's advantages over direct root logins or su-ing. The disadvantages/problems are in the article, but just not clearly enough identifiead as such, imho. --Snori 09:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Added alternative pronunciation

Typically people (I do) prnounce as initially described (as in sudoku), but I have heard others pronounce the, possibly more correct term using 'do' as in 'doop' and not as in 'dough', as the 'do' is literally the word, 'do'. So I added that to the article. Reikon 20:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why "doop", rather than "doom" which is an actual English word? All the meanings of doop given on the wiki page seem pretty obscure, so why would you expect people to know how it is pronounced? --Jwwalker 22:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"doop" is an actual English word. Reikon 00:19, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Location of command

I think the default location of the command should also be listed. --Darth Borehd 05:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By default, it's installed into /usr/bin. IlliterateSage 08:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mac OS X sudo frontend

Does Mac OS X's graphical frontend to sudo have a name? IlliterateSage 08:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]