[X-Unix] Sudo as Another User

[James Bucanek]

Alex wrote on Wednesday, February 25, 2004:
>I am logged in as a user without admin privileges.

<clip>

>My understanding of man sudo is that I should be able to run sudo as 
>another user with the -u option, thus
>
>sudo -u <admin_user> rm /Library/Preference/Logs/panic.log

That's correct.  -u tells sudo to run that command as a user other than root, however...

>However, it doesn't work -- the result is a message stating that the 
>current user is not in the sudoers file, etc.

... you still have to have permission to run sudo, and your non-admin user account doesn't.  Instead, just use 'su' (switch users) to login as the (admin) user you desire.

    su admin_user

Once you are logged in as the admin user, you can then issue the command you need or gain access to sudo for things that need root privileges.

[ Note: I occationally get some funky messages when switching from a non-admin user to an admin user, but I think these are probably access restrictions on the non-admin account.  Once logged in, I don't remember having any problems. ]

______________________________________________________
James Bucanek       <mailto:privatereply at gloaming.com>