[nycbug-talk] passwordless sudo: yay or nay?

[Mikel King]

On Nov 8, 2008, at 6:33 PM, N.J. Thomas wrote:

> I've noticed a trend in the past few years where a lot of Unix users  
> (a
> group in which I clump BSD, Linux, and Mac OS X) are using  
> passwordless
> sudo.
>
> I've always thought this to be a security risk, if a local account  
> with
> sudo access is compromised then the attackers have root access, so all
> my accounts that have blanket sudo access (i.e. "ALL=(ALL) ALL")  
> need to
> enter a password.
>
> What is the current thinking/best practice on how to setup sudo on PCs
> and personal Unix-based desktops? Is passwordless sudo okay in this
> context?
>
> Thomas

Thomas,

	Yeah it's bad, real bad, and you should never ever ever do it. It  
will curl your hair, sour your milk, turning your beer into water and  
cause mold to grow on all of your bread.  Oh and of course give you  
really bad breath.

	But all that aside, there are a few instances when it is possibly  
acceptable....

	I find it a good way to protect me from myself especially after  
spending 18 hours rebuilding a clients server and at 2 am when you  
just ran out of coffee just before you try to type rm  -rf...

Cheers,
m