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kapqa

Member

Registered: 2019-01-02

Posts: 763  

Changes in sudo (upstream)

This was today in the "news"

sudo (1.9.17p2-7) unstable; urgency=medium

   Starting with sudo 1.9.17p2-6, the default /etc/sudoers was aligned with
   the example file that upstream ships. This was done to reduce the
   differences between Debian and other distributions.

   This has removed /usr/local/sbin and /usr/local/bin from the
   "Defaults secure_path" setting. This may break some local scripts, but
   also increases security, since on some systems, /usr/local might be
   writable for non-root users and thus executing programs from there might
   introduce privilege escalation.

   If you want to use executables from /usr/local with sudo without giving
   the explicit path, consider changing the setting in an /etc/sudoers.d
   snippet.

-- Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>  Sat, 04 Jul 2026 12:57:42 +0200

have not fully understood the implicatoins of change, but suppose it is a benevolent, sensible change.

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 147  

Re: Changes in sudo (upstream)

sudo is one of the first packages that I uninstall on laptops/desktops after a fresh installation.

It is not even meant for the purpose it's being used by most Linux distros, sudo is meant to give limited access to specific commands as root or other restricted user to specific users on a multi-user system, not as a "run everything you want as root" tool on a single user desktop/laptop system.

We have to thank Ubuntu for introducing this misuse of sudo on Linux.

Last edited by tux_99 (Yesterday 21:55:27)

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“Either the users control the program – or the program controls the users” Richard Stallman

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 2,105  

Re: Changes in sudo (upstream)

Hello:

... as a "run everything you want as root" tool on a single user desktop ...

Not the way I use it, mostly thanks to my learning about it when on PCLinuxOS.
One of the main admins was quite adamant about it.
See: https://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201205/page11.html

But yes, I agree that a great many people use it in the wrong way.
Mainly thanks to the Ubuntu distribution.

I am, of course, also interested in the implications of the announced change.

Best,

A.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,984  

Re: Changes in sudo (upstream)

What is says is that if you want to use sudo to run a command in /usr/local/(s)bin, you must now give the full path to the command.

What I see is that I do not have to give the full path to run the command with sudo, but maybe that's because I have the full path to the command already in my /etc/sudoers.d/usercommands. So for me, there's no change. Tested this in freia with the version of sudo mentioned above.

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 1,760  

Website

Re: Changes in sudo (upstream)

Wait, some of you are still using sudo?

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fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,984  

Re: Changes in sudo (upstream)

Yeah, I have sudo NOPASSWD set for a few commands for one user. That's all.

Mercury

Member

Registered: 2024-11-14

Posts: 50  

Re: Changes in sudo (upstream)

What is the "proper" way to run admin tasks? For example, what "should" I be using to edit system-wide conf files?