Should sudo be used?

[Christian Walther]

On 05/04/07, Schiz0 <schiz0phrenic21 at gmail.com> wrote:
[Moved answer to the bottom -- please don't use top post]
>
> On 4/5/07, Pietro Cerutti <pietro.cerutti at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 4/5/07, Schiz0 <schiz0phrenic21 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I don't use sudo. I find it rather pointless. If I need to do something
> > as
> > > root, I use su to gain root privileges, then when I'm done, I exit and
> > > return to the original user. The user running su must be in the group
> > > "wheel" to be able to su to root. This is a simple yet convenient
> > security
> > > system.
> >
> > What when you have several people with different privileges wanting to
> > do stuff that normally only root can? Would you give your root
> > password to everyone, or rather install sudo and define exactly what a
> > user can do?
> >
> True, if that was the case I'd use sudo. But I'm the only user on my systems
> that I'd trust with root access, so there's no point with my setup.

Well, sudo makes execution of several commands or script as another
user quite simple because there's no need to enter the root password.
For example I've three Access Points at home, but my machine can't
connect to the "nearest" one automatically. So I need to issue
"ifconfig ath0 scan" as root. Since I'm not root all the time, I
defined an alias that executes the command using sudo. It's just one
word, and I'm set.

My girlfriend is using my old Laptop know, and I installed FreeBSD on
it, too. So she needs the command, too. Since she isn't used to the
Console I defined a new program/button in KDE she can press.

So you see, there are reasons to use sudo even if you're the only user
on a system. But as anywhere else in the Unix world, there are several
different ways of how to perform a certain task, and the way one
chooses is up to him/her.