SUDO(8) BSD System Manager's Manual SUDO(8)

NAME
sudo, sudoedit — execute a command as another user

SYNOPSIS
sudo -h | -K | -k | -V
sudo -v [-ABknS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-u user]
sudo -l [-ABknS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-U user] [-u user]
[command]
sudo [-ABbEHnPS] [-C num] [-D directory] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt]
[-R directory] [-r role] [-t type] [-T timeout] [-u user]
[VAR=value] [-i | -s] [command]
sudoedit [-ABknS] [-C num] [-D directory] [-g group] [-h host]
[-p prompt] [-R directory] [-r role] [-t type] [-T timeout]
[-u user] file ...

DESCRIPTION
sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or an
other user, as specified by the security policy. The invoking user's
real (not effective) user-ID is used to determine the user name with
which to query the security policy.

sudo supports a plugin architecture for security policies, auditing, and

input/output logging. Third parties can develop and distribute their own
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 re
quired, 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 0 minutes.

Security policies may support credential caching to allow the user to run
sudo again for a period of time without requiring authentication. By de
fault, the sudoers policy caches credentials on a per-terminal basis for
15 minutes. See the timestamp_type and timestamp_timeout options in
sudoers(5) for more information. By running sudo with the -v option, a
user can update the cached credentials without running a command.

On systems where sudo is the primary method of gaining superuser privi

leges, it is imperative to avoid syntax errors in the security policy
configuration files. For the default security policy, sudoers(5),
changes to the configuration files should be made using the visudo(8)
utility which will ensure that no syntax errors are introduced.

When invoked as sudoedit, the -e option (described below), is implied.

Security policies and audit plugins may log successful and failed at
tempts to run sudo. If an I/O plugin is configured, the running com
mand's input and output may be logged as well.

The options are as follows:

-A, --askpass
Normally, if sudo requires a password, it will read it from
the user's terminal. If the -A (askpass) option is speci
fied, a (possibly graphical) helper program is executed to
read the user's password and output the password to the stan
dard output. If the SUDO_ASKPASS environment variable is
set, it specifies the path to the helper program. Otherwise,
if sudo.conf(5) contains a line specifying the askpass pro
gram, that value will be used. For example:
 # Path to askpass helper program
Path askpass /usr/X11R6/bin/ssh-askpass

If no askpass program is available, sudo will exit with an

error.

-B, --bell Ring the bell as part of the password prompt when a terminal
is present. This option has no effect if an askpass program
is used.

-b, --background
Run the given command in the background. Note that it is not
possible to use shell job control to manipulate background
processes started by sudo. Most interactive commands will
fail to work properly in background mode.

-C num, --close-from=num
Close all file descriptors greater than or equal to num be
fore executing a command. Values less than three are not
permitted. By default, sudo will close all open file de
scriptors other than standard input, standard output, and
standard error when executing a command. The security policy
may restrict the user's ability to use this option. The
sudoers policy only permits use of the -C option when the ad
ministrator has enabled the closefrom_override option.

-D directory, --chdir=directory
Run the command in the specified directory instead of the
current working directory. The security policy may return an
error if the user does not have permission to specify the
working directory.

-E, --preserve-env
Indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to pre
serve their existing environment variables. The security
policy may return an error if the user does not have permis
sion to preserve the environment.

--preserve-env=list
Indicates to the security policy that the user wishes to add
the comma-separated list of environment variables to those
preserved from the user's environment. The security policy
may return an error if the user does not have permission to
preserve the environment. This option may be specified mul
tiple times.

-e, --edit Edit one or more files instead of running a command. In lieu
of a path name, the string "sudoedit" is used when consulting
the security policy. If the user is authorized by the pol
icy, the following steps are taken:

1. Temporary copies are made of the files to be edited with

the owner set to the invoking user.

2. The editor specified by the policy is run to edit the

temporary files. The sudoers policy uses the
SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables (in
that order). If none of SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR
are set, the first program listed in the editor
sudoers(5) option is used.

3. If they have been modified, the temporary files are

copied back to their original location and the temporary
versions are removed.

To help prevent the editing of unauthorized files, the fol

lowing restrictions are enforced unless explicitly allowed by
 the security policy:

• Symbolic links may not be edited (version 1.8.15 and

higher).

• Symbolic links along the path to be edited are not fol

lowed when the parent directory is writable by the invok
ing user unless that user is root (version 1.8.16 and
higher).

• Files located in a directory that is writable by the in

voking user may not be edited unless that user is root
(version 1.8.16 and higher).

Users are never allowed to edit device special files.

If the specified file does not exist, it will be created.

Note that unlike most commands run by sudo, the editor is run
with the invoking user's environment unmodified. If the tem
porary file becomes empty after editing, the user will be
prompted before it is installed. If, for some reason, sudo
is unable to update a file with its edited version, the user
will receive a warning and the edited copy will remain in a
temporary file.

-g group, --group=group
Run the command with the primary group set to group instead
of the primary group specified by the target user's password
database entry. The group may be either a group name or a
numeric group-ID (GID) prefixed with the ‘#’ character (e.g.,
#0 for GID 0). When running a command as a GID, many shells
require that the ‘#’ be escaped with a backslash (‘\’). If
no -u option is specified, the command will be run as the in
voking user. In either case, the primary group will be set
to group. The sudoers policy permits any of the target
user's groups to be specified via the -g option as long as
the -P option is not in use.

-H, --set-home
Request that the security policy set the HOME environment
variable to the home directory specified by the target user's
password database entry. Depending on the policy, this may
be the default behavior.

-h, --help Display a short help message to the standard output and exit.

-h host, --host=host
Run the command on the specified host if the security policy
plugin supports remote commands. Note that the sudoers
plugin does not currently support running remote commands.
This may also be used in conjunction with the -l option to
list a user's privileges for the remote host.

-i, --login
Run the shell specified by the target user's password data
base entry as a login shell. This means that login-specific
resource files such as .profile, .bash_profile, or .login
will be read by the shell. If a command is specified, it is
passed to the shell as a simple command using the -c option.
The command and any arguments are concatenated, separated by
spaces, after escaping each character (including white space)
with a backslash (‘\’) except for alphanumerics, underscores,
hyphens, and dollar signs. If no command is specified, an
interactive shell is executed. sudo attempts to change to
that user's home directory before running the shell. The
command is run with an environment similar to the one a user
would receive at log in. Note that most shells behave dif
 ferently when a command is specified as compared to an inter
active session; consult the shell's manual for details. The
Command environment section in the sudoers(5) manual docu
ments how the -i option affects the environment in which a
command is run when the sudoers policy is in use.

-K, --remove-timestamp
Similar to the -k option, except that it removes the user's
cached credentials entirely and may not be used in conjunc
tion with a command or other option. This option does not
require a password. Not all security policies support cre
dential caching.

-k, --reset-timestamp
When used without a command, invalidates the user's cached
credentials. In other words, the next time sudo is run a
password will be required. This option does not require a
password, and was added to allow a user to revoke sudo per
missions from a .logout file.

When used in conjunction with a command or an option that may

require a password, this option will cause sudo to ignore the
user's cached credentials. As a result, sudo will prompt for
a password (if one is required by the security policy) and
will not update the user's cached credentials.

Not all security policies support credential caching.

-l, --list If no command is specified, list the allowed (and forbidden)

commands for the invoking user (or the user specified by the
-U option) on the current host. A longer list format is used
if this option is specified multiple times and the security
policy supports a verbose output format.

If a command is specified and is permitted by the security

policy, the fully-qualified path to the command is displayed
along with any command line arguments. If a command is spec
ified but not allowed by the policy, sudo will exit with a
status value of 1.

-n, --non-interactive
Avoid prompting the user for input of any kind. If a pass
word is required for the command to run, sudo will display an
error message and exit.

-P, --preserve-groups
Preserve the invoking user's group vector unaltered. By de
fault, the sudoers policy will initialize the group vector to
the list of groups the target user is a member of. The real
and effective group-IDs, however, are still set to match the
target user.

-p prompt, --prompt=prompt
Use a custom password prompt with optional escape sequences.
The following percent (‘%’) escape sequences are supported by
the sudoers policy:

%H expanded to the host name including the domain name (only

if the machine's host name is fully qualified or the fqdn
option is set in sudoers(5))

%h expanded to the local host name without the domain name

%p expanded to the name of the user whose password is being

requested (respects the rootpw, targetpw, and runaspw
flags in sudoers(5))
 %U expanded to the login name of the user the command will
be run as (defaults to root unless the -u option is also
specified)

%u expanded to the invoking user's login name

%% two consecutive ‘%’ characters are collapsed into a sin

gle ‘%’ character

The custom prompt will override the default prompt specified

by either the security policy or the SUDO_PROMPT environment
variable. On systems that use PAM, the custom prompt will
also override the prompt specified by a PAM module unless the
passprompt_override flag is disabled in sudoers.

-R directory, --chroot=directory
Change to the specified root directory (see chroot(8)) before
running the command. The security policy may return an error
if the user does not have permission to specify the root di
rectory.

-r role, --role=role
Run the command with an SELinux security context that in
cludes the specified role.

-S, --stdin
Write the prompt to the standard error and read the password
from the standard input instead of using the terminal device.

-s, --shell
Run the shell specified by the SHELL environment variable if
it is set or the shell specified by the invoking user's pass
word database entry. If a command is specified, it is passed
to the shell as a simple command using the -c option. The
command and any arguments are concatenated, separated by spa
ces, after escaping each character (including white space)
with a backslash (‘\’) except for alphanumerics, underscores,
hyphens, and dollar signs. If no command is specified, an
interactive shell is executed. Note that most shells behave
differently when a command is specified as compared to an in
teractive session; consult the shell's manual for details.

-t type, --type=type
Run the command with an SELinux security context that in
cludes the specified type. If no type is specified, the de
fault type is derived from the role.

-U user, --other-user=user
Used in conjunction with the -l option to list the privileges
for user instead of for the invoking user. The security pol
icy may restrict listing other users' privileges. The
sudoers policy only allows root or a user with the ALL privi
lege on the current host to use this option.

-T timeout, --command-timeout=timeout
Used to set a timeout for the command. If the timeout ex
pires before the command has exited, the command will be ter
minated. The security policy may restrict the ability to set
command timeouts. The sudoers policy requires that user-
specified timeouts be explicitly enabled.

-u user, --user=user
Run the command as a user other than the default target user
(usually root). The user may be either a user name or a nu
meric user-ID (UID) prefixed with the ‘#’ character (e.g., #0
for UID 0). When running commands as a UID, many shells re
quire that the ‘#’ be escaped with a backslash (‘\’). Some
 security policies may restrict UIDs to those listed in the
password database. The sudoers policy allows UIDs that are
not in the password database as long as the targetpw option
is not set. Other security policies may not support this.

-V, --version
Print the sudo version string as well as the version string
of any configured plugins. If the invoking user is already
root, the -V option will display the arguments passed to con
figure when sudo was built; plugins may display additional
information such as default options.

-v, --validate
Update the user's cached credentials, authenticating the user
if necessary. For the sudoers plugin, this extends the sudo
timeout for another 15 minutes by default, but does not run a
command. Not all security policies support cached creden
tials.

-- The -- option indicates that sudo should stop processing com

mand line arguments.

Options that take a value may only be specified once unless otherwise in
dicated in the description. This is to help guard against problems
caused by poorly written scripts that invoke sudo with user-controlled
input.

Environment variables to be set for the command may also be passed on the
command line in the form of VAR=value, e.g.,
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/pkg/lib. Variables passed on the command line
are subject to restrictions imposed by the security policy plugin. The
sudoers policy subjects variables passed on the command line to the same
restrictions as normal environment variables with one important excep
tion. If the setenv option is set in sudoers, the command to be run has
the SETENV tag set or the command matched is ALL, the user may set vari
ables that would otherwise be forbidden. See sudoers(5) for more infor
mation.

COMMAND EXECUTION
When sudo executes a command, the security policy specifies the execution
environment for the command. Typically, the real and effective user and
group and IDs are set to match those of the target user, as specified in
the password database, and the group vector is initialized based on the
group database (unless the -P option was specified).

The following parameters may be specified by security policy:

• real and effective user-ID

• real and effective group-ID

• supplementary group-IDs

• the environment list

• current working directory

• file creation mode mask (umask)

• SELinux role and type

• scheduling priority (aka nice value)

Process model
There are two distinct ways sudo can run a command.

If an I/O logging plugin is configured or if the security policy explic

 itly requests it, a new pseudo-terminal (“pty”) is allocated and fork(2)
is used to create a second sudo process, referred to as the monitor. The
monitor creates a new terminal session with itself as the leader and the
pty as its controlling terminal, calls fork(2), sets up the execution en
vironment as described above, and then uses the execve(2) system call to
run the command in the child process. The monitor exists to relay job
control signals between the user's existing terminal and the pty the com
mand is being run in. This makes it possible to suspend and resume the
command. Without the monitor, the command would be in what POSIX terms
an “orphaned process group” and it would not receive any job control sig
nals from the kernel. When the command exits or is terminated by a sig
nal, the monitor passes the command's exit status to the main sudo
process and exits. After receiving the command's exit status, the main
sudo passes the command's exit status to the security policy's close
function and exits.

If no pty is used, sudo calls fork(2), sets up the execution environment

as described above, and uses the execve(2) system call to run the command
in the child process. The main sudo process waits until the command has
completed, then passes the command's exit status to the security policy's
close function and exits. As a special case, if the policy plugin does
not define a close function, sudo will execute the command directly in
stead of calling fork(2) first. The sudoers policy plugin will only de
fine a close function when I/O logging is enabled, a pty is required, an
SELinux role is specified, the command has an associated timeout, or the
pam_session or pam_setcred options are enabled. Note that pam_session
and pam_setcred are enabled by default on systems using PAM.

On systems that use PAM, the security policy's close function is respon
sible for closing the PAM session. It may also log the command's exit
status.

Signal handling
When the command is run as a child of the sudo process, sudo will relay
signals it receives to the command. The SIGINT and SIGQUIT signals are
only relayed when the command is being run in a new pty or when the sig
nal was sent by a user process, not the kernel. This prevents the com
mand from receiving SIGINT twice each time the user enters control-C.
Some signals, such as SIGSTOP and SIGKILL, cannot be caught and thus will
not be relayed to the command. As a general rule, SIGTSTP should be used
instead of SIGSTOP when you wish to suspend a command being run by sudo.

As a special case, sudo will not relay signals that were sent by the com
mand it is running. This prevents the command from accidentally killing
itself. On some systems, the reboot(8) command sends SIGTERM to all non-
system processes other than itself before rebooting the system. This
prevents sudo from relaying the SIGTERM signal it received back to
reboot(8), which might then exit before the system was actually rebooted,
leaving it in a half-dead state similar to single user mode. Note, how
ever, that this check only applies to the command run by sudo and not any
other processes that the command may create. As a result, running a
script that calls reboot(8) or shutdown(8) via sudo may cause the system
to end up in this undefined state unless the reboot(8) or shutdown(8) are
run using the exec() family of functions instead of system() (which in
terposes a shell between the command and the calling process).

If no I/O logging plugins are loaded and the policy plugin has not de
fined a close() function, set a command timeout, or required that the
command be run in a new pty, sudo may execute the command directly in
stead of running it as a child process.

Plugins
Plugins may be specified via Plugin directives in the sudo.conf(5) file.
They may be loaded as dynamic shared objects (on systems that support
them), or compiled directly into the sudo binary. If no sudo.conf(5)
file is present, or if it doesn't contain any Plugin lines, sudo will use
sudoers(5) for the policy, auditing, and I/O logging plugins. See the
 sudo.conf(5) manual for details of the /etc/sudo.conf file and the
sudo_plugin(5) manual for more information about the sudo plugin archi
tecture.

EXIT VALUE
Upon successful execution of a command, the exit status from sudo will be
the exit status of the program that was executed. If the command termi
nated due to receipt of a signal, sudo will send itself the same signal
that terminated the command.

If the -l option was specified without a command, sudo will exit with a
value of 0 if the user is allowed to run sudo and they authenticated suc
cessfully (as required by the security policy). If a command is speci
fied with the -l option, the exit value will only be 0 if the command is
permitted by the security policy, otherwise it will be 1.

If there is an authentication failure, a configuration/permission prob

lem, or if the given command cannot be executed, sudo exits with a value
of 1. In the latter case, the error string is printed to the standard
error. If sudo cannot stat(2) one or more entries in the user's PATH, an
error is printed to the standard error. (If the directory does not exist
or if it is not really a directory, the entry is ignored and no error is
printed.) This should not happen under normal circumstances. The most
common reason for stat(2) to return “permission denied” is if you are
running an automounter and one of the directories in your PATH is on a
machine that is currently unreachable.

SECURITY NOTES
sudo tries to be safe when executing external commands.

To prevent command spoofing, sudo checks "." and "" (both denoting cur
rent directory) last when searching for a command in the user's PATH (if
one or both are in the PATH). Depending on the security policy, the
user's PATH environment variable may be modified, replaced, or passed un
changed to the program that sudo executes.

Users should never be granted sudo privileges to execute files that are
writable by the user or that reside in a directory that is writable by
the user. If the user can modify or replace the command there is no way
to limit what additional commands they can run.

Please note that sudo will normally only log the command it explicitly
runs. If a user runs a command such as sudo su or sudo sh, subsequent
commands run from that shell are not subject to sudo's security policy.
The same is true for commands that offer shell escapes (including most
editors). If I/O logging is enabled, subsequent commands will have their
input and/or output logged, but there will not be traditional logs for
those commands. Because of this, care must be taken when giving users
access to commands via sudo to verify that the command does not inadver
tently give the user an effective root shell. For information on ways to
address this, please see the Preventing shell escapes section in
sudoers(5).

To prevent the disclosure of potentially sensitive information, sudo dis

ables core dumps by default while it is executing (they are re-enabled
for the command that is run). This historical practice dates from a time
when most operating systems allowed set-user-ID processes to dump core by
default. To aid in debugging sudo crashes, you may wish to re-enable
core dumps by setting “disable_coredump” to false in the sudo.conf(5)
file as follows:

Set disable_coredump false

See the sudo.conf(5) manual for more information.

ENVIRONMENT
sudo utilizes the following environment variables. The security policy
 has control over the actual content of the command's environment.

EDITOR Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode if neither

SUDO_EDITOR nor VISUAL is set.

MAIL Set to the mail spool of the target user when the -i op
tion is specified, or when env_reset is enabled in
sudoers (unless MAIL is present in the env_keep list).

HOME Set to the home directory of the target user when the -i
or -H options are specified, when the -s option is spec
ified and set_home is set in sudoers, when
always_set_home is enabled in sudoers, or when env_reset
is enabled in sudoers and HOME is not present in the
env_keep list.

LOGNAME Set to the login name of the target user when the -i op
tion is specified, when the set_logname option is en
abled in sudoers, or when the env_reset option is en
abled in sudoers (unless LOGNAME is present in the
env_keep list).

PATH May be overridden by the security policy.

SHELL Used to determine shell to run with -s option.

SUDO_ASKPASS Specifies the path to a helper program used to read the

password if no terminal is available or if the -A option
is specified.

SUDO_COMMAND Set to the command run by sudo, including command line

arguments. The command line arguments are truncated at
4096 characters to prevent a potential execution error.

SUDO_EDITOR Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode.

SUDO_GID Set to the group-ID of the user who invoked sudo.

SUDO_PROMPT Used as the default password prompt unless the -p option

was specified.

SUDO_PS1 If set, PS1 will be set to its value for the program be
ing run.

SUDO_UID Set to the user-ID of the user who invoked sudo.

SUDO_USER Set to the login name of the user who invoked sudo.

USER Set to the same value as LOGNAME, described above.

VISUAL Default editor to use in -e (sudoedit) mode if

SUDO_EDITOR is not set.

FILES
/etc/sudo.conf sudo front-end configuration

EXAMPLES
Note: the following examples assume a properly configured security pol
icy.

To get a file listing of an unreadable directory:

$ sudo ls /usr/local/protected

To list the home directory of user yaz on a machine where the file system
holding ~yaz is not exported as root:
 $ sudo -u yaz ls ~yaz

To edit the index.html file as user www:

$ sudoedit -u www ~www/htdocs/index.html

To view system logs only accessible to root and users in the adm group:

$ sudo -g adm more /var/log/syslog

To run an editor as jim with a different primary group:

$ sudoedit -u jim -g audio ~jim/sound.txt

To shut down a machine:

$ sudo shutdown -r +15 "quick reboot"

To make a usage listing of the directories in the /home partition. Note

that this runs the commands in a sub-shell to make the cd and file redi
rection work.

$ sudo sh -c "cd /home ; du -s * | sort -rn > USAGE"

DIAGNOSTICS
Error messages produced by sudo include:

editing files in a writable directory is not permitted

By default, sudoedit does not permit editing a file when any of the
parent directories are writable by the invoking user. This avoids
a race condition that could allow the user to overwrite an arbi
trary file. See the sudoedit_checkdir option in sudoers(5) for
more information.

editing symbolic links is not permitted

By default, sudoedit does not follow symbolic links when opening
files. See the sudoedit_follow option in sudoers(5) for more in
formation.

effective uid is not 0, is sudo installed setuid root?

sudo was not run with root privileges. The sudo binary must be
owned by the root user and have the set-user-ID bit set. Also, it
must not be located on a file system mounted with the ‘nosuid’ op
tion or on an NFS file system that maps uid 0 to an unprivileged
uid.

effective uid is not 0, is sudo on a file system with the 'nosuid' option
set or an NFS file system without root privileges?
sudo was not run with root privileges. The sudo binary has the
proper owner and permissions but it still did not run with root
privileges. The most common reason for this is that the file sys
tem the sudo binary is located on is mounted with the ‘nosuid’ op
tion or it is an NFS file system that maps uid 0 to an unprivileged
uid.

fatal error, unable to load plugins

An error occurred while loading or initializing the plugins speci
fied in sudo.conf(5).

invalid environment variable name

One or more environment variable names specified via the -E option
contained an equal sign (‘=’). The arguments to the -E option
should be environment variable names without an associated value.

no password was provided

When sudo tried to read the password, it did not receive any char
acters. This may happen if no terminal is available (or the -S op
 tion is specified) and the standard input has been redirected from
/dev/null.

a terminal is required to read the password

sudo needs to read the password but there is no mechanism available
for it to do so. A terminal is not present to read the password
from, sudo has not been configured to read from the standard input,
the -S option was not used, and no askpass helper has been speci
fied either via the sudo.conf(5) file or the SUDO_ASKPASS environ
ment variable.

no writable temporary directory found

sudoedit was unable to find a usable temporary directory in which
to store its intermediate files.

The “no new privileges” flag is set, which prevents sudo from running as
root.
sudo was run by a process that has the Linux “no new privileges”
flag is set. This causes the set-user-ID bit to be ignored when
running an executable, which will prevent sudo from functioning.
The most likely cause for this is running sudo within a container
that sets this flag. Check the documentation to see if it is pos
sible to configure the container such that the flag is not set.

sudo must be owned by uid 0 and have the setuid bit set
sudo was not run with root privileges. The sudo binary does not
have the correct owner or permissions. It must be owned by the
root user and have the set-user-ID bit set.

sudoedit is not supported on this platform

It is only possible to run sudoedit on systems that support setting
the effective user-ID.

timed out reading password

The user did not enter a password before the password timeout (5
minutes by default) expired.

you do not exist in the passwd database

Your user-ID does not appear in the system passwd database.

you may not specify environment variables in edit mode

It is only possible to specify environment variables when running a
command. When editing a file, the editor is run with the user's
environment unmodified.

SEE ALSO
su(1), stat(2), login_cap(3), passwd(5), sudo.conf(5), sudo_plugin(5),
sudoers(5), sudoers_timestamp(5), sudoreplay(8), visudo(8)

HISTORY
See the HISTORY file in the sudo distribution (https://www.sudo.ws/his
tory.html) for a brief history of sudo.

AUTHORS
Many people have worked on sudo over the years; this version consists of
code written primarily by:

Todd C. Miller

See the CONTRIBUTORS file in the sudo distribution

(https://www.sudo.ws/contributors.html) for an exhaustive list of people
who have contributed to sudo.

CAVEATS
There is no easy way to prevent a user from gaining a root shell if that
user is allowed to run arbitrary commands via sudo. Also, many programs
(such as editors) allow the user to run commands via shell escapes, thus
 avoiding sudo's checks. However, on most systems it is possible to pre
vent shell escapes with the sudoers(5) plugin's noexec functionality.

It is not meaningful to run the cd command directly via sudo, e.g.,

$ sudo cd /usr/local/protected

since when the command exits the parent process (your shell) will still
be the same. Please see the EXAMPLES section for more information.

Running shell scripts via sudo can expose the same kernel bugs that make
set-user-ID shell scripts unsafe on some operating systems (if your OS
has a /dev/fd/ directory, set-user-ID shell scripts are generally safe).

BUGS
If you feel you have found a bug in sudo, please submit a bug report at
https://bugzilla.sudo.ws/

SUPPORT
Limited free support is available via the sudo-users mailing list, see
https://www.sudo.ws/mailman/listinfo/sudo-users to subscribe or search
the archives.

DISCLAIMER
sudo is provided “AS IS” and any express or implied warranties, includ
ing, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and
fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. See the LICENSE file
distributed with sudo or https://www.sudo.ws/license.html for complete
details.

Sudo 1.9.9 January 19, 2022 Sudo 1.9.9