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How does Linux system behave when I am not sudoer? Here is what happens if I try to use sudo:
server:/tmp>$ sudo cal
[sudo] password for user:
Sorry, try again.
Is it possible that I just don't know my password or does this mean that I am not sudoer? (On another machine system printed out that I'm no sudoer and the incident will be reported)
To know whether a particular user is having sudo access or not, we can use -l and -U options together.
For example,
If the user has sudo access, it will print the level of sudo access for that particular user.
$ sudo -l -U pradeep User pradeep may run the following commands on this host: (ALL : ALL) ALL
If the user don't have sudo access, it will print that user is not allowed to run sudo on localhost.
$ sudo -l -U pradeep.c User pradeep.c is not allowed to run sudo on localhost.
server:/home/drasto>$ sudo -l -U drasto [sudo] password for drasto: There is Red Hat distro on that server if that helps
man sudo on Ubuntu 18.04: "The security policy may restrict listing other users' privileges. The sudoers policy only allows root or a user with the ALL privilege on the current host to use this option."
Apr 19, 2021 at 14:59
You can use the -l flag to list your privileges.
-l[l] [command]
If no command is specified, the -l (list) option will list the allowed (and forbidden)
commands for the invoking user (or the user specified by the -U option) on the current
host. If a command is specified and is permitted by sudoers, the fully-qualified path
to the command is displayed along with any command line arguments. If command is
specified but not allowed, sudo will exit with a status value of 1. If the -l option
is specified with an l argument (i.e. -ll), or if -l is specified multiple times, a
longer list format is used.
If you're not in the file, you should get the "not in the sudoers file" error you saw on the other machine.
server:/home/drasto>$ sudo -l [sudo] password for drasto:
sudo -l I need sudo password? So I have to be root to know if I'm root?!
sudo is looking for your login password. So if you've tried that and it doesn't work, either sudo is horribly misconfigured or you're in a jail of some sort where it can't see or read the proper files. Either way, you have in effect no sudo permissions.
You can check if you are in the sudo group, by using the command
groups
In a shell-script you may want to use this:
if groups | grep "\<sudo\>" &> /dev/null; then
echo yes
else
echo no
fi
sudo, admin, wheel, or something else altogether, and even with membership in a group, an individual user maybe denied sudo access via specific rules (or the other way around).