About sudo(1)

This is an article about the sudo command.

What is sudo?

Superuser Do (abbreviated as sudo) is a command that allows you to run as an administrator on a Unix-like OS. Personally, I find the interpretation of sudo as “Shut Up and Do” easier to accept than “Superuser Do”…lol.

There are commands that need to be run as administrator to perform. Why do we need commands when we can assume that the user is the administrator?

Because it’s safer to give them away right away. The less time a user logging in as root has to hold onto privileges, the better.

Can’t I use it on other operating systems?

Unix-based operating systems aren’t the only ones that can use sudo at the moment - it’s also available on Windows and MacOS. I’ll be writing about sudo in part 2, as I’m curious as to why Windows and MacOS can also be controlled via sudo.