I was using OpenSUSE at my workplace and needed to add myself to the sudoers group. I did that successfully, but the first time I tried to use sudo, I found that the system was asking for the root password instead of my password as happens in Ubuntu.
The reason was the following line in the sudoers file (/etc/sudoers):
Defaults rootpw
This means that all sudo functions require the root password, instead of the user password
You can set this only for one user, with:
Defaults:jim rootpw
Here, only jim will be asked for root password.
Note that the proper way of editing the sudoers file is by running the following command:
visudo
Sudo settings may be viewed by the following command:
sudo -V
#sudo -V Sudo version 1.7.4p4 Configure args: --prefix=/usr -v --with-all-insults --with-devel --with-pam --with-fqdn --with-logging=syslog --with-logfac=authpriv --with-env-editor --with-editor=/usr/bin/editor --with-timeout=15 --with-password-timeout=0 --with-passprompt=[sudo] password for %p: --with-timedir=/var/lib/sudo --disable-root-mailer --disable-setresuid --with-sendmail=/usr/sbin/sendmail --mandir=/usr/share/man --libexecdir=/usr/lib/sudo --with-secure-path=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin Sudoers path: /etc/sudoers Authentication methods: 'pam' Syslog facility if syslog is being used for logging: authpriv Syslog priority to use when user authenticates successfully: notice Syslog priority to use when user authenticates unsuccessfully: alert Send mail if the user is not in sudoers Use a separate timestamp for each user/tty combo Lecture user the first time they run sudo Require users to authenticate by default Root may run sudo Allow some information gathering to give useful error messages Require fully-qualified hostnames in the sudoers file Visudo will honor the EDITOR environment variable Set the LOGNAME and USER environment variables Length at which to wrap log file lines (0 for no wrap): 80 Authentication timestamp timeout: 15.0 minutes Password prompt timeout: 0.0 minutes Number of tries to enter a password: 3 Umask to use or 0777 to use user's: 022 Path to mail program: /usr/sbin/sendmail Flags for mail program: -t Address to send mail to: root Subject line for mail messages: *** SECURITY information for %h *** Incorrect password message: Sorry, try again. Path to authentication timestamp dir: /var/lib/sudo Default password prompt: [sudo] password for %p: Default user to run commands as: root Value to override user's $PATH with: /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin Path to the editor for use by visudo: /usr/bin/editor When to require a password for 'list' pseudocommand: any When to require a password for 'verify' pseudocommand: all File containing dummy exec functions: /usr/lib/sudo/sudo_noexec.so File descriptors >= 3 will be closed before executing a command Reset the environment to a default set of variables Environment variables to check for sanity: TERM LINGUAS LC_* LANGUAGE LANG COLORTERM Environment variables to remove: RUBYOPT RUBYLIB PYTHONUSERBASE PYTHONINSPECT PYTHONPATH PYTHONHOME TMPPREFIX ZDOTDIR READNULLCMD NULLCMD FPATH PERL5DB PERL5OPT PERL5LIB PERLLIB PERLIO_DEBUG JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS SHELLOPTS GLOBIGNORE PS4 BASH_ENV ENV TERMCAP TERMPATH TERMINFO_DIRS TERMINFO _RLD* LD_* PATH_LOCALE NLSPATH HOSTALIASES RES_OPTIONS LOCALDOMAIN PS4 SHELLOPTS CDPATH IFS Environment variables to preserve: XAUTHORIZATION XAUTHORITY TZ PS2 PS1 PATH LS_COLORS KRB5CCNAME HOSTNAME DISPLAY COLORS Locale to use while parsing sudoers: C Compress I/O logs using zlib
The following is a very useful beginner’s guide to sudoers:
http://www.developertutorials.com/tutorials/linux/using-sudo-050511-1194/
Joel G Mathew, known in tech circles by the pseudonym Droidzone, is an opensource and programming enthusiast.
He is a full stack developer, whose favorite languages are currently Python and Vue.js. He is also fluent in Javascript, Flutter/Dart, Perl, PHP, SQL, C and bash shell scripting. He loves Linux, and can often be found tinkering with linux kernel code, and source code for GNU applications. He used to be an active developer on XDA forums, and his tinkered ROMS used to be very popular in the early 2000s.
His favorite pastime is grappling with GNU compilers, discovering newer Linux secrets, writing scripts, hacking roms, and programs (nothing illegal), reading, blogging. and testing out the latest gadgets.
When away from the tech world, Dr Joel G. Mathew is a practising ENT Surgeon, busy with surgeries and clinical practise.