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Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo

From Martin <keine-eile@online.de>
Newsgroups linux.debian.user
Subject Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo
Date 2018-08-07 15:10 +0200
Message-ID <wk9Um-13f-29@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
References (1 earlier) <wk8lz-8q5-7@gated-at.bofh.it> <wk8EW-5t-17@gated-at.bofh.it> <wk8Yh-se-11@gated-at.bofh.it> <wk9hE-zx-9@gated-at.bofh.it> <wk9KF-JR-7@gated-at.bofh.it>
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Am 07.08.2018 um 14:50 schrieb The Wanderer:
> On 2018-08-07 at 08:27, Martin wrote:
> 
>> Am 07.08.2018 um 14:07 schrieb The Wanderer:
>>
>>> On 2018-08-07 at 07:47, Martin wrote:
> 
>>>> As a system operator, you need some elevated privileges on a
>>>> daily basis. How do you do that without sudo?
>>>
>>> No, I don't. I only need them when I'm doing elevated things, such
>>> as installs or upgrades. (In practice on some machines, I do those
>>> on around a weekly basis or slightly more frequently, but it can
>>> be argued that that's overkill.) The overwhelming majority of what
>>> I do does not require elevated privileges, and the few things
>>> which do are not needed anywhere near daily.
>>
>> Starting and stopping services (e.g. running systemctl), changing
>> configurations, all things you, where individual decisions have to
>> be made, reuire elevated privileges. root in many cases.
> 
> And none of those are things I need to do as frequently as on a daily
> basis.
>>> How I do them is by running either "su -c 'command name'", or
>>> simply running 'su' and then running the desired command(s) and
>>> then exiting the root shell.
>>
>> So, what is bad with 'sudo -u TARGETUSER YOUR_COMMEND'? How do you
>> edit a file with su? Invoke a shell? Take a look at sudoedit!
> 
> "su OPTIONAL_USERNAME -c 'YOUR_COMMAND'", or similar, where
> 'YOUR_COMMAND' could be 'nano /path/to/file-to-be-edited' - or could be
> 'sh', if it weren't possible to get a root shell by just running
> straight 'su' instead.

Ouch!
Once you let a user run an editor with escalated privileges, you're fu**ed. In almost every editor, you can load a different file, save the buffer with a different file name. 
That is, why I pointed out the use of 'sudoedit'. You need to warp your mind around it, from a security standpoint, the use of 'su' is not a good idea in almost all cases.
And I still have no idea, what the single case would be, where sudo would not be able to do, what you may accomplish using su.

[...]

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Thread

As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin Drescher <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 12:00 +0200
  Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2018-08-07 12:50 +0200
    Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org> - 2018-08-07 13:20 +0200
      Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin Drescher <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 13:30 +0200
        Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2018-08-07 17:20 +0200
          Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 17:40 +0200
            Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2018-08-07 18:20 +0200
      Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2018-08-07 14:10 +0200
        Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo likcoras <likcoras@riseup.net> - 2018-08-07 14:40 +0200
    Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo likcoras <likcoras@riseup.net> - 2018-08-07 14:00 +0200
  Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2018-08-07 13:00 +0200
  Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Stephan Seitz <stse+debian@fsing.rootsland.net> - 2018-08-07 13:20 +0200
    Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo James Allsopp <jamesaallsopp@googlemail.com> - 2018-08-07 13:30 +0200
      Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2018-08-07 13:50 +0200
        Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Stephan Seitz <stse+debian@fsing.rootsland.net> - 2018-08-07 14:30 +0200
          Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 14:30 +0200
        Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org> - 2018-08-07 15:20 +0200
          Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 15:50 +0200
      Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2018-08-07 14:20 +0200
      Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Dave Sherohman <dave@sherohman.org> - 2018-08-07 15:30 +0200
    Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 13:40 +0200
      Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Stephan Seitz <stse+debian@fsing.rootsland.net> - 2018-08-07 14:30 +0200
  Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2018-08-07 13:30 +0200
    Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 13:50 +0200
      Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2018-08-07 14:10 +0200
        Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 14:30 +0200
          Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2018-08-07 15:00 +0200
            Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2018-08-07 15:10 +0200
              Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2018-08-07 15:30 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2018-08-07 15:40 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2018-08-07 18:20 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2018-08-07 18:40 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2018-08-07 18:50 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2018-08-07 19:10 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2018-08-07 20:10 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2018-08-07 20:10 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2018-08-07 20:20 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2018-08-07 20:50 +0200
            Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 15:10 +0200
              Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2018-08-07 15:30 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2018-08-07 15:50 +0200
                Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Martin <keine-eile@online.de> - 2018-08-07 15:50 +0200
            Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Nemeth Gyorgy <friczy@freemail.hu> - 2018-08-07 21:10 +0200
              Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2018-08-07 22:10 +0200
          Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2018-08-07 15:20 +0200
          Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Stephan Seitz <stse+debian@fsing.rootsland.net> - 2018-08-07 16:10 +0200
        Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Dave Sherohman <dave@sherohman.org> - 2018-08-07 15:30 +0200
          Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2018-08-07 15:40 +0200
        Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2018-08-07 18:10 +0200
  Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo Eike Lantzsch <zp6cge@gmx.net> - 2018-08-07 14:30 +0200
  Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo mick crane <mick.crane@gmail.com> - 2018-08-07 16:00 +0200
  Re: As seen above: use of su vs sudo mick crane <mick.crane@gmail.com> - 2018-08-07 18:30 +0200

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