What's the deal with sudo?

[Javasnob]

Just curious (well maybe more than just curious), what are the security advantages and disadvantages of using sudo instead of a root account? I've read it's better security practice to use sudo, but no reasons why. Anyone care to clarify?

Thanks!

[antidrugue]

I think there is a good answer to that here :
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ro...45454d6ded2fac

Personally, using "sudo" is just a reminder that my actions are done "as root". The fact that "sudo" only confers temporary root privileges is what I like the most about it. No need to login and logout of the root account.

On the contrary, when using root I always fear that I might forget logging out.

[Javasnob]

Couldn't you just do su -c <command>?

[anomie]

As to whether using sudo is a "better" security practice is subjective.

There are situations where a *nix box has multiple admins, or even power users, who require elevated privileges for just certain tasks. In these situations sudo is an excellent choice, because the main admin doesn't have to give out the root password to anyone else.

Although I don't agree with all the points at that ubuntu documentation site, it does refer to another very good feature of sudo: it provides an audit trail of which commands were run using it.

[burntfuse]

Besides, that way only the things that need to be run as root are run as root.