How to Use sudo to Assign Root Access to a User on a Linux Server

Using sudo to Assign Root Access to a User on a Linux Server

At times you are required to offer Root access for a particular account having limited privileges on a server. You must follow the below steps to assign Root Access to a particular user using sudo.

Step 1: Login to the server as root.

Step 2: Run the following command :

root@host [~]# visudo

Step 3: The screen displayed would be of the sudoers file in the vi editor. You must include the below line into this file to assign complete root privileges to an account (in our case it is account name).:

accountname ALL=(ALL) ALL

Step 4: If you do not intend to offer the complete access but be able to run a particular list of commands, you may create a command alias in your sudoers file, for example:

User_Alias ADMINS = accountname
Cmnd_Alias HTTPD = /etc/init.d/httpd
ADMINS ALL = HTTPD

With this, you should be able to create a group of users whom you can then assign command aliases to. You only need to ensure that the users are separated using a comma (,).

The Cmnd_Alias would show you a list of different commands that the users of a particular Alias can run. You may then choose the user alias and assign the command alias.

The above would ask the user to enter his/her password each time sudo is run. Though it doesn’t want the system to ask for a password each time, you may replaceADMINS ALL = HTTPD the last line with the following :

ADMINS ALL = NOPASSWD: HTTPD