When run from the command line, su asks for the target user's password, and if authenticated, grants the operator access to that account and the files and directories that account is permitted to access.Īdditionally, one can switch to another user who is not the superuser The su command, also referred to as substitute user, super user, or switch user, allows a computer operator to change the current user account associated with the running virtual console.īy default, and without any other command line argument, this will elevate the current user to the superuser of the local system. It opens /etc/sudoers, using the vi editor's interface by default (although this can be changed by setting the shell's EDITOR environment variable to a different text editor), prevents multiple simultaneous edits with locks, performs sanity checks and checks for parse errors. Visudo is a command-line utility that allows editing of the /etc/sudoers file in a safe fashion. Sudo operates on a per-command basis.įeatures include: the ability to restrict what commands a user may run on a per-host basis, copious logging of each command (providing a clear audit trail of who did what), a configurable timeout of the sudo command, and the ability to use the same configuration file (sudoers) on many different machines.

Sudo (superuser do) allows a system administrator to give certain users (or groups of users) the ability to run some (or all) commands as root while logging all commands and arguments.

Sudo vs su security