CentOS Quick Start Guide

Using sudo to run commands as the root user

In the previous method, the standard user temporarily becomes the root using the su command; all the privileges of root are granted by specifying the root password. This method is not suitable for running some programs as root as it gives unlimited privileges to the normal user. Granting privileges using sudo is less dangerous and is the preferred method.

The sudo feature is used to assign more limited privileges to user accounts, based on the settings in the /etc/sudoers file. In this method, sudo requires the user to enter their own password for authentication and not the password of the account they are trying to access. This method allows them to delegate system administration tasks, without ...