Skip to main content

linux - Allow users of a certain group to run a command without sudo


I know how to edit /etc/sudoers so that I can run a command as sudo without having to enter my password, however is there a way of allowing a program to be run completely without sudo, by all users of a group. (The programs I want to run is "mount" and "umount").



Answer



Suppose I wanted to add a group of users who are allowed to run mount and umount without passwords. So I first want to add a group called "anyname"


sudo groupadd anyname

Next we need to edit the /etc/group and add the users


anyname:x:407:

will be present ,hence append users you want to add the users seperated by commas.


anyname:x:407:user1,user2,...

Now we need to configure sudo to allow members of the "anyname" group to actually invoke the mount and umount commands.


You just need to add the following lines to /etc/sudoers


%anyname ALL=NOPASSWD: /sbin/mount, /sbin/umount

Now sudo mount wont ask password but since it is a pain in the butt typing sudo all the time, we can avoid it by dong the following:


I can create the following script called "/usr/bin/mount" (and similar script for umount)


#! /bin/sh
sudo /sbin/mount $*

To make this slightly more secure, We might want to change the ownership of these scripts to the "anyname" group.


chgrp anyname /usr/bin/mount /usr/bin/umount

and then make them executable only for the group "anyname"


chmod g+x /usr/bin/mount  /usr/bin/umount

EDIT:Depending on the OS you are using please check where mount and umount commands are located. It might be in /bin/ instead of /sbin.So you might have to make necessary changes


IMPORTANT: BTW don't run the script on Arch based systems where all of the bin folders are symlinked with each other.


Comments

Popular Posts

How do I transmit a single hexadecimal value serial data in PuTTY using an Alt code?

I am trying to sent a specific hexadecimal value across a serial COM port using PuTTY. Specifically, I want to send the hex codes 9C, B6, FC, and 8B. I have looked up the Alt codes for these and they are 156, 182, 252, and 139 respectively. However, whenever I input the Alt codes, a preceding hex value of C2 is sent before 9C, B6, and 8B so the values that are sent are C2 9C, C2 B6, and C2 8B. The value for FC is changed to C3 FC. Why are these values being placed before the hex value and why is FC being changed altogether? To me, it seems like there is a problem internally converting the Alt code to hex. Is there a way to directly input hex values without using Alt codes in PuTTY? Answer What you're seeing is just ordinary text character set conversion. As far as PuTTY is concerned, you are typing (and reading) text , not raw binary data, therefore it has to convert the text to bytes in whatever configured character set before sending it over the wire. In other words, when y...

linux - Extract/save a mail attachment using bash

Using normal bash tools (ie, built-ins or commonly-available command-line tools), is it possible, and how to extract/save attachments on emails? For example, say I have a nightly report which arrives via email but is a zip archive of several log files. I want to save all those zips into a backup directory. How would I accomplish that? Answer If you're aiming for portability, beware that there are several different versions of mail(1) and mailx(1) . There's a POSIX mailx command, but with very few requirements. And none of the implementations I have seem to parse attachments anyway. You might have the mpack package . Its munpack command saves all parts of a MIME message into separate files, then all you have to do is save the interesting parts and clean up the rest. There's also metamail . An equivalent of munpack is metamail -wy .

keyboard - Is there any utility/method to change Windows key bindings to type rare chars to currently empty bindings?

I'm currently typing this post with my windows XP machine and (Spanish) keyboard, and I'd like to add some extra symbols to my text. I could open the "char map" windows utility, look for the desired symbols, and paste them. But I'd like something quickier. For example, when I'm using my OSX Mac at work, I can easily add a ©, ™, ® or similar symbols, just pressing some weird ALT-GR + G / H / J, key combinations. In my (Spanish) keyboard mapping, these combinations are empty, as they don't produce any char at all, which, on the other hand, is perfectly normal and desirable. So, I thought: Why couldn't I add some extra key mappings on top of my currently empty ALT-GR + G/J/H Keys in my Spanish keyboard, and thus, being able to quickly type these special symbols? So that's my question: Is there any utility/method to achieve that effect under windows? (My version is XP). I've even googled this for some time but no luck. I've been a long term Hot...

Desktop reboots itself on sleep or hibernate

I have been using an ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard for main home desktop workstation, operating Windows Vista x64. This computer has right from day one not been able to enter hibernate or standby; after Windows performs its final actions and brings the machine down, it would automatically revive itself for a reboot. Updating to the second latest BIOS (1201)has not helped (the latest BIOS revision would induce video refresh problems rendering it unusable). I have been reading related discussions on incidents similar to mine to no avail of a true workable solution. They appear to be more speculative guesses rather than actual knowledge on the inner workings of motherboard hardware. Does anybody have any electronic engineering experience on PC energy-saving standards to provide a more informed opinion how to go about getting this to work? More stories: this motherboard could not even reboot properly the first thing i used it. It was due to refresh rate of the onboard GPU, which had no influe...