The sys admin's daily grind: sudoers
Charly's Column – sudoersn
"I've seen penguins that can type better than that." If you give sudo the wrong password, you deserve to be shouted at, says sys admin columnist Charly. He is not exempt from the insult and sees it as an opportunity to raise sudoing awareness.
If you work with and on Linux, you are likely to type sudo regularly to execute programs with another user's privileges – typically the superuser's. sudo will then understandably ask for the appropriate password. In times when my fingers refuse to obey me and I enter the secret password wrong three times in succession, sudo rejects my request to escalate. Okay, if you fail to type the password correctly despite having had three attempts, maybe you shouldn't be messing around on the system with root privileges. So far, so good, but free software can surely offer more than that!
sudo visudo
sudo looks for its default settings in the /etc/sudoers file. You can't just open it with an editor; instead, you need to use the visudo command – assuming you're root. (If I'm on the road as a user, I have to type sudo visudo, which strangely makes me laugh.) At the beginning of the file are some lines that start with Defaults. You need to add two lines here (Figure 1):
Defaults insults Defaults passwd_tries=5
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
KDE Unleashes Plasma 6.5
The Plasma 6.5 desktop environment is now available with new features, improvements, and the usual bug fixes.
-
Xubuntu Site Possibly Hacked
It appears that the Xubuntu site was hacked and briefly served up a malicious ZIP file from its download page.
-
LMDE 7 Now Available
Linux Mint Debian Edition, version 7, has been officially released and is based on upstream Debian.
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Reaches EOL
Linux kernel 6.16 has reached its end of life, which means you'll need to upgrade to the next stable release, Linux kernel 6.17.
-
Amazon Ditches Android for a Linux-Based OS
Amazon has migrated from Android to the Linux-based Vega OS for its Fire TV.
-
Cairo Dock 3.6 Now Available for More Compositors
If you're a fan of third-party desktop docks, then the latest release of Cairo Dock with Wayland support is for you.
-
System76 Unleashes Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta
System76's first beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 is an impressive feat.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.