Sudo

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Why can't I use sudo on CCRMA Linux Workstations?!?!?

Short Answer (from Chris)

On May 22, 2019, at 11:12 AM, Chris Chafe <cc@ccrma.Stanford.EDU> wrote local-users@ccrma:

Reminder about "sudo" -- mortals (like me) cannot do installs on house computers which require root privileges. Switching on that privilege, for example when installing on your own unix machine, is usually done with the sudo command. That won't work for most of us on a CCRMA workstation because we are not authorized "sudoers." It's what makes the penguin immortals, Nando and Carlos, immortals. Please contact them if there's something needed. (Attempting "sudo" automatically alerts the sys admins about a failed attempt.)


Long Answer (from Nando)

On Mar 17, 2019, at 3:45 PM, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano <nando@ccrma.Stanford.EDU> wrote local-users@ccrma:

Hey,

Lately we are receiving more and more warning emails like this one:

> Subject: *** SECURITY information for xxx.stanford.edu *** > > cmnxxx.stanford.edu : Mar 17 03:14:11 : yyy : user NOT in sudoers ; > ... (details omitted)

(where xxx is the name of one of our Linux based workstations and yyy is the account name of one of our users).

These emails are sent to us sysadmins when someone tries to use the "sudo" command.

The Linux command "sudo" elevates privileges to the "super user" (root) so that you can run commands that require full access to the operating system - for installing software, for example. That is fine if you have Linux installed in your workstation or laptop and the user account you created for yourself has administrative privileges.

That is not the case if you have a ccrma account and you are using one of our Linux workstations. You will not be able to use "sudo" and any such use will be automatically reported to us (Carlos and myself). While we will ask what you need and try to help, it is not the best way to "contact" your IT team!

Please try to learn about what you are about to do, and why, before doing it. If you need additional software installed, contact us. If you read somewhere that you need to do "sudo something" don't do it[*]. Tell us what you need and we will try to help!

Thanks, -- Fernando

[*] most of the warnings we receive are about installing software that is actually not compatible with the version of Linux we are running (Fedora). Our workstations are not running Debian or one of its derivatives like Ubuntu.