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Linux Security Cookbook
book

Linux Security Cookbook

by Daniel J. Barrett, Richard E. Silverman, Robert G. Byrnes
June 2003
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
336 pages
8h 54m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Linux Security Cookbook

5.9. Prohibiting Command Arguments with sudo

Problem

You want to permit a command to be run via sudo, but only without command-line arguments.

Solution

Follow the program name with the single argument “” in /etc/sudoers:

               /etc/sudoers:
smith  ALL = (root) /usr/local/bin/mycommand ""

smith$ sudo -u root mycommand a b c                         Rejected
smith$ sudo -u root mycommand                               Authorized

Discussion

If you specify no arguments to a command in /etc/sudoers, then by default any arguments are permitted.

               /etc/sudoers:
smith  ALL = (root) /usr/local/bin/mycommand

smith$ sudo -u root mycommand a b c                         Authorized

Use “” to prevent any runtime arguments from being authorized.

See Also

sudo(8), sudoers(5).

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596003919Errata Page