What sudo means in linux?

Answer 1

Run 'man <program name>' to get the full manual to a program. Below is an example how to get the sudo manual and the first few lines of the manual.

$ man sudo

NAME

sudo, sudoedit - execute a command as another user

SYNOPSIS

sudo -h | -K | -k | -L | -V

sudo -v [-AknS] [-g group name|#gid] [-p prompt] [-u username|#uid]

sudo -l[l] [-AknS] [-g group name|#gid] [-p prompt] [-U user name]

[-u user name|#uid] [command]

sudo [-AbEHnPS] [-C fd] [-g group name|#gid] [-p prompt]

[-u user name|#uid] [VAR=value] [-i | -s] [command]

sudoedit [-AnS] [-C fd] [-g group name|#gid] [-p prompt]

[-u user name|#uid] file ...

DESCRIPTION

sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or

another user, as specified in the sudoers file. The real and effective

uid and gid are set to match those of the target user as specified in

the passwd file and the group vector is initialized based on the group

file (unless the -P option was specified). If the invoking user is

root or if the target user is the same as the invoking user, no

password is required. Otherwise, sudo requires that users authenticate

themselves with a password by default (NOTE: in the default

configuration this is the user's password, not the root password).

Once a user has been authenticated, a time stamp is updated and the

user may then use sudo without a password for a short period of time

(15 minutes unless overridden in sudoers).