using sudo always prompt for password when calling rsync

Question

I have a program that repeatedly uses rsync to send data to the destination, the rsync script which the program uses doesn't need a password to send data as I've used a public-key authentication mechanism for rsync. but the program needs to be run with sudo as it uses some kernel utilities too, but what is happening is whenever I use sudo to run the program it always prompts for password input when calls rsync script.

Is there a way to mitigate this problem?

Answer 1

I think you might not be the administrator of this server, and the admin have setup this to improve security. In case you are the admin you can follow the steps below else you can ask directly the admin to make the changes.

So what you can do :

In case your it asks you to enter your user PASSWORD :

1- Get your username & group id (gid) :

id

2- Check in sudo configuration file :

grep <username> /etc/sudoers
grep <gid> /etc/sudoers

You must see an entry for the group if the line is beginning with % ; else an entry for your username without % symbol :

%<gid>  ALL=(ALL) ALL

Execute visudo to edit /etc/sudoers :

visudo

Now you should add (NOPASSWD:) to make sudo not asks for your user password :

%<gid>  ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

In case your it asks you to enter the root PASSWORD : Execute visudo to edit /etc/sudoers :

visudo

Delete the line above to disable rootpw flag on /etc/sudoers, so you will not be asked to enter the root password :

Defaults rootpw