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On a RHEL server I would like to let a user run a command as root without a password:

# uname -a
Linux foo.com 2.6.32-220.38.1.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed May 15 08:34:56 EDT 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# cat /etc/issue
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.5 (Santiago)
Kernel \r on an \m

# visudo
User_Alias FOOEMPLOYEES = someuser
Cmnd_Alias FOOCOMMANDS = /root/bin/fix-permissions
FOOEMPLOYEES   ALL = NOPASSWD: FOOCOMMANDS

For some reason, the system is still asking the user for his password:

$ alias
alias fix-permissions='/root/bin/fix-permissions'

$ fix-permissions 
-bash: /root/bin/fix-permissions: Permission denied

$ sudo fix-permissions 
[sudo] password for someuser:

Why might the sudo configuration not work? Did I configure it wrong? I copied the configuration from this guide.

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  • Do the command start without sudo with full path /root/bin/fix-permissions? And the last string shoul be ` FOOEMPLOYEES ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: FOOCOMMANDS` – Costas Oct 26 '14 at 10:14
  • From the man sudoers > The basic structure of a user specification is “who where = (as_whom) what” – Costas Oct 26 '14 at 10:28
  • Thank you! I've updated the visudo line to FOOEMPLOYEES ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: FOOCOMMANDS. Running /root/bin/fix-permissions still comments that permission is denied, but running sudo /root/bin/fix-permissions actually works. – dotancohen Oct 26 '14 at 11:08
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The last string should be

FOOEMPLOYEES ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: FOOCOMMANDS

From the man sudoers

The basic structure of a user specification is “who where = (as_whom) what”

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