What if you want one user to run a command as an another system user without exchanging passwords. For example, you may want an user john to run a find command or custom bash shell script as an user greg or even as a user root ( superuser ) without password exchange. In this case a sudo utility with its /etc/sudoers configuration file will be your friend.

The file /etc/sudoers, has the rules that users have to follow when using sudo command.

Sudo which is su “do” allows a system administrator to delegate authority to give certain users (or groups of users) the ability to run some (or all) commands as root or another user while providing an audit trail of the commands and their arguments.sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user, as specified in the sudoers file.

But what if, as a system administrator, you add a new user and want to give them similar sudo rights? How do you go about doing this?

Ubuntu's use of sudo to simplify Linux administration is ingenious, but barely scratches the surface of what sudo can do. Follow along as Yvo Van Doorn of Likewise Software unlocks the powers of sudo.

Is sudo really needed everywhere ? Of course not ! This article tries to explain why sudo is worse than su for most desktop *nix users out there.

I recently read a blog posting that denounced the use of sudo as insecure. My first reaction was that the author had no idea how to use sudo properly or why you would want to.

When You use 'sudo' command it will ask for password in First time and will remember password for 15 minutes. It is a security hole for sensitive systems.You can change sudo Password Remembering Time in Ubuntu .

How many times did you type a command and forgot to type sudo first ? What do you want to say when that happens ? No, not that…you might want to say : sudo !!