Stable Release

The current stable release of the sudo 1.9 branch is version 1.9.16p1. For the sudo 1.8 branch, see legacy releases.

For full details of all changes, see the ChangeLog file or view the commit history via mercurial or GitHub

• Fixed the test for cross-compiling when checking for C99 snprintf(). The changes made to the test in sudo 1.9.16 resulted in a different problem. GitHub issue #386.

• Fixed the date used by the exit record in sudo-format log files. This was a regression introduced in sudo 1.9.16 and only affected file-based logs, not syslog. GitHub issue #405.

• Fixed the root cause of the “unable to find terminal name for device” message when running sudo on AIX when no terminal is present. In sudo 1.9.16 this was turned from a debug message into a warning. GitHub issue #408.

• When a duplicate alias is found in the sudoers file, the warning message now includes the file and line number of the previous definition.

• Added support for the --with-secure-path-value=no configure option to allow packagers to ship the default sudoers file with the secure path line commented out.

• Sudo no longer sends mail when a user runs sudo -nv or sudo -nl, even if mail_badpass or mail_always are set. Sudo already avoids logging to a file or syslog in this case. Bug #1072.

• Added the cmddenial_message sudoers option to provide additional information to the user when a command is denied by the sudoers policy. The default message is still displayed.

• The time stamp used for file-based logs is now more consistent with the time stamp produced by syslog. GitHub issue #327.

• Sudo will now warn the user if it can detect the user’s terminal but cannot determine the path to the terminal device. The sudoers time stamp file will now use the terminal device number directly. GitHub issue #329.

• The embedded copy of zlib has been updated to version 1.3.1.

• Improved error handling if generating the list of signals and signal names fails at build time.

• Fixed a compilation issue on Linux systems without process_vm_readv().

• Fixed cross-compilation with WolfSSL.

• Added a json_compact value for the sudoers log_format option which can be used when logging to a file. The existing json value has been aliased to json_pretty. In a future release, json will be an alias for json_compact. GitHub issue #357.

• A new pam_silent sudoers option has been added which may be negated to avoid suppressing output from PAM authentication modules. GitHub issue #216.

• Fixed several cvtsudoers JSON output problems. GitHub issues #369, #370, #371, #373, #381.

• When sudo runs a command in a pseudo-terminal and the user’s terminal is revoked, the pseudo-terminal’s foreground process group will now receive SIGHUP before the terminal is revoked. This emulates the behavior of the session leader exiting and is consistent with what happens when, for example, an ssh session is closed. GitHub issue #367.

• Fixed make test with Python 3.12. GitHub issue #374.

• In schema.ActiveDirectory, fixed the quoting in the example command. GitHub issue #376.

• Paths specified via a Chdir_Spec or Chroot_Spec in sudoers may now be double-quoted.

• Sudo insults are now included by default, but disabled unless the --with-insults configure option is specified or the insults sudoers option is enabled.

• The default sudoers file now enables the secure_path option by default and preserves the EDITOR, VISUAL, and SUDO_EDITOR environment variables when running visudo. The new --with-secure-path-value configure option can be used to set the value of secure_path in the default sudoers file. GitHub issue #387.

• A sudoers schema for IBM Directory Server (aka IBM Tivoli Directory Server, IBM Security Directory Server, and IBM Security Verify Directory) is now included.

• When cross-compiling sudo, the configure script now assumes that the snprintf() function is C99-compliant if the C compiler supports the C99 standard. Previously, configure would use sudo’s own snprintf() when cross-compiling. GitHub issue #386.

• Fixed evaluation of the lecture, listpw, verifypw, and fdexec sudoers Defaults settings when used without an explicit value. Previously, if specified without a value they were evaluated as boolean false, even when the negation operator (’!’) was not present.

• Fixed a bug introduced in sudo 1.9.14 that prevented LDAP netgroup queries using the NETGROUP_BASE setting from being performed.

• Sudo will now transparently rename a user’s lecture file from the older name-based path to the newer user-ID-based path. GitHub issue #342.

• Fixed a bug introduced in sudo 1.9.15 that could cause a memory allocation failure if sysconf(_SC_LOGIN_NAME_MAX) fails. Bug #1066.

• Fixed a bug introduced in sudo 1.9.15 that could prevent a user’s privileges from being listed by sudo -l if the sudoers entry in /etc/nsswitch.conf contains [SUCCESS=return]. This did not affect the ability to run commands via sudo. Bug #1063.

• Always disable core dumps when sudo sends itself a fatal signal. Fixes a problem where sudo could potentially dump core dump when it re-sends the fatal signal to itself. This is only an issue if the command received a signal that would normally result in a core dump but the command did not actually dump core.

• Fixed a bug matching a command with a relative path name when the sudoers rule uses shell globbing rules for the path name. Bug #1062.

• Permit visudo to be run even if the local host name is not set. GitHub issue #332.

• Fixed an editing error introduced in sudo 1.9.15 that could prevent sudoreplay from replaying sessions correctly. GitHub issue #334.

• Fixed a bug introduced in sudo 1.9.15 where sudo -l > /dev/null could hang on Linux systems. GitHub issue #335.

• Fixed a bug introduced in sudo 1.9.15 where Solaris privileges specified in sudoers were not applied to the command being run.

• Fixed a bug on BSD systems where sudo would not restore the terminal settings on exit if the terminal had parity enabled. GitHub issue #326.

• Fixed a bug introduced in sudo 1.9.15 that prevented LDAP-based sudoers from being able to read the ldap.conf file. GitHub issue #325.

• Fixed an undefined symbol problem on older versions of macOS when intercept or log_subcmds are enabled in sudoers. GitHub issue #276.

• Fixed make check failure related to getpwent(3) wrapping on NetBSD.

• Fixed the warning message for sudo -l command when the command is not permitted. There was a missing space between “list” and the actual command due to changes in sudo 1.9.14.

• Fixed a bug where output could go to the wrong terminal if use_pty is enabled (the default) and the standard input, output or error is redirected to a different terminal. Bug #1056.

• The visudo utility will no longer create an empty file when the specified sudoers file does not exist and the user exits the editor without making any changes. GitHub issue #294.

• The AIX and Solaris sudo packages on www.sudo.ws now support log_subcmds and intercept with both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries. Previously, they only worked when running binaries with the same word size as the sudo binary. GitHub issue #289.

• The sudoers source is now logged in the JSON event log. This makes it possible to tell which rule resulted in a match.

• Running sudo -ll command now produces verbose output that includes matching rule as well as the path to the sudoers file the matching rule came from. For LDAP sudoers, the name of the matching sudoRole is printed instead.

• The embedded copy of zlib has been updated to version 1.3.

• The sudoers plugin has been modified to make it more resilient to ROWHAMMER attacks on authentication and policy matching. This addresses CVE-2023-42465.

• The sudoers plugin now constructs the user time stamp file path name using the user-ID instead of the user name. This avoids a potential problem with user names that contain a path separator (’/’) being interpreted as part of the path name. A similar issue in sudo-rs has been assigned CVE-2023-42456.

• A path separator (’/’) in a user, group or host name is now replaced with an underbar character (’_’) when expanding escapes in @include and @includedir directives as well as the iolog_file and iolog_dir sudoers Default settings.

• The intercept_verify sudoers option is now only applied when the intercept option is set in sudoers. Previously, it was also applied when log_subcmds was enabled. Sudo 1.9.14 contained an incorrect fix for this. Bug #1058.

• Changes to terminal settings are now performed atomically, where possible. If the command is being run in a pseudo-terminal and the user’s terminal is already in raw mode, sudo will not change the user’s terminal settings. This prevents concurrent sudo processes from restoring the terminal settings to the wrong values. GitHub issue #312.

• Reverted a change from sudo 1.9.4 that resulted in PAM session modules being called with the environment of the command to be run instead of the environment of the invoking user. GitHub issue #318.

• New Indonesian translation from translationproject.org.

• The sudo_logsrvd server will now raise its open file descriptor limit to the maximum allowed value when it starts up. Each connection can require up to nine open file descriptors so the default soft limit may be too low.

• Better log message when rejecting a command if the intercept option is enabled and the intercept_allow_setid option is disabled. Previously, “command not allowed” would be logged and the user had no way of knowing what the actual problem was.

• Sudo will now log the invoking user’s environment as submitenv in the JSON logs. The command’s environment (runenv) is no longer logged for commands rejected by the sudoers file or an approval plugin.

• Fixed a crash with Python 3.12 when the sudo Python plugin is unloaded. This only affects make check for the Python plugin.

• Adapted the sudo Python plugin test output to match Python 3.12.

• Fixed a crash on Linux systems introduced in version 1.9.14 when running a command with a NULL argv[0] if log_subcmds or intercept is enabled in sudoers.

• Fixed a problem with “stair-stepped” output when piping or redirecting the output of a sudo command that takes user input when running a command in a pseudo-terminal.

• Fixed a bug introduced in sudo 1.9.14 that affects matching sudoers rules containing a Runas_Spec with an empty Runas user. These rules should only match when sudo’s -g option is used but were matching even without the -g option. GitHub issue #290.

• Fixed an invalid free bug in sudo_logsrvd that was introduced in version 1.9.14 which could cause sudo_logsrvd to crash.

• The sudoers plugin no longer tries to send the terminal name to the log server when no terminal is present. This bug was introduced in version 1.9.14.

• Fixed a bug where if the intercept or log_subcmds sudoers option was enabled and a sub-command was run where the first entry of the argument vector didn’t match the command being run. This resulted in commands like sudo su - being killed due to the mismatch. Bug #1050.

• The sudoers plugin now canonicalizes command path names before matching (where possible). This fixes a bug where sudo could execute the wrong path if there are multiple symbolic links with the same target and the same base name in sudoers that a user is allowed to run. GitHub issue #228.

• Improved command matching when a chroot is specified in sudoers. The sudoers plugin will now change the root directory id needed before performing command matching. Previously, the root directory was simply prepended to the path that was being processed.

• When NETGROUP_BASE is set in the ldap.conf file, sudo will now perform its own netgroup lookups of the host name instead of using the system innetgr(3) function. This guarantees that user and host netgroup lookups are performed using the same LDAP server (or servers).

• Fixed a bug introduced in sudo 1.9.13 that resulted in a missing " ; " separator between environment variables and the command in log entries.

• The visudo utility now displays a warning when it ignores a file in an include dir such as /etc/sudoers.d.

• When running a command in a pseudo-terminal, sudo will initialize the terminal settings even if it is the background process. Previously, sudo only initialized the pseudo-terminal when running in the foreground. This fixes an issue where a program that checks the window size would read the wrong value when sudo was running in the background.

• Fixed a bug where only the first two digits of the TSID field being was logged. Bug #1046.

• The use_pty sudoers option is now enabled by default. To restore the historic behavior where a command is run in the user’s terminal, add Defaults !use_pty to the sudoers file. GitHub issue #258.

• Sudo’s -b option now works when the command is run in a pseudo-terminal.

• When disabling core dumps, sudo now only modifies the soft limit and leaves the hard limit as-is. This avoids problems on Linux when sudo does not have CAP_SYS_RESOURCE, which may be the case when run inside a container. GitHub issue #42.

• Sudo configuration file paths have been converted to colon-separated lists of paths. This makes it possible to have configuration files on a read-only file system while still allowing for local modifications in a different (writable) directory. The new --enable-adminconf configure option can be used to specify a directory that is searched for configuration files in preference to the sysconfdir (which is usually /etc).

• The intercept_verify sudoers option is now only applied when the intercept option is set in sudoers. Previously, it was also applied when log_subcmds was enabled.

• The NETGROUP_QUERY ldap.conf parameter can now be disabled for LDAP servers that do not support querying the nisNetgroup object by its nisNetgroupTriple attribute, while still allowing sudo to query the LDAP server directly to determine netgroup membership.

• Fixed a long-standing bug where a sudoers rule without an explicit runas list allowed the user to run a command as root and any group instead of just one of the groups that root is a member of. For example, a rule such as myuser ALL = ALL would permit sudo -u root -g othergroup even if root did not belong to othergroup.

• Fixed a bug where a sudoers rule with an explicit runas list allowed a user to run sudo commands as themselves. For example, a rule such as myuser ALL = (root) ALL, myuser should only allow commands to be run as root (optionally using one of root’s groups). However, the rule also allowed the user to run sudo -u myuser -g myuser command.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the user from specifying a group on the command line via sudo -g if the rule’s Runas_Spec contained a Runas_Alias.

• Sudo now requires a C99 compiler due to the use of flexible array members.

• Fixed a bug introduced in sudo 1.9.13 that caused a syntax error when list was used as a user or host name. GitHub issue #246.

• Fixed a bug that could cause sudo to hang when running a command in a pseudo-terminal when there is still input buffered after a command has exited.

• Fixed sudo -U otheruser -l command. This is a regression in sudo 1.9.13. GitHub issue #248.

• Fixed sudo -l command args when matching a command in sudoers with command line arguments. This is a regression in sudo 1.9.13. GitHub issue #249.

• Fixed the --enable-static-sudoers option, broken in sudo 1.9.13. GitHub issue #245.

• Fixed a potential double-free bug when matching a sudoers rule that contains a per-command chroot directive (CHROOT=dir). This bug was introduced in sudo 1.9.8.

• Fixed a typo in the configure script that resulted in a line like “]: command not found” in the output. GitHub issue #238.

• Corrected the order of the C23 [[noreturn]] attribute in function prototypes. This fixes a build error with GCC 13. GitHub issue #239.

• The check make target misbehaved when there was more than one version of the UTF-8 C locale in the output of locale -a. GitHub issue #241.

• Removed a dependency on the AC_SYS_YEAR2038 macro in configure.ac. This was added in autoconf 2.72 but sudo’s configure.ac only required autoconf 2.70. GitHub issue #242.

• Relaxed the autoconf version requirement to version 2.69.

• Fixed a bug running relative commands via sudo when log_subcmds is enabled. GitHub issue #194.

• Fixed a signal handling bug when running sudo commands in a shell script. Signals were not being forwarded to the command when the sudo process was not run in its own process group.

• Fixed a bug in the cvtsudoers LDIF parsing when the file ends without a newline and a backslash is the last character of the file.

• Fixed a potential use-after-free bug with cvtsudoers filtering. GitHub issue #198.

• Added a reminder to the default lecture that the password will not echo. This line is only displayed when the pwfeedback option is disabled. GitHub issue #195.

• Fixed potential memory leaks in error paths. GitHub issue #199. GitHub issue #202.

• Fixed potential NULL dereferences on memory allocation failure. GitHub issue #204. GitHub issue #211.

• Sudo now uses C23-style attributes in function prototypes instead of gcc-style attributes if supported.

• Added a new list pseudo-command in sudoers to allow a user to list another user’s privileges. Previously, only root or a user with the ability to run any command as either root or the target user on the current host could use the -U option. This also includes a fix to the log entry when a user lacks permission to run sudo -U otheruser -l command. Previously, the logs would indicate that the user tried to run the actual command, now the log entry includes the list operation.

• JSON logging now escapes control characters if they happen to appear in the command or environment.

• New Albanian translation from translationproject.org.

• Regular expressions in sudoers or logsrvd.conf may no longer contain consecutive repetition operators. This is implementation- specific behavior according to POSIX, but some implementations will allocate excessive amounts of memory. This mainly affects the fuzzers.

• Sudo now builds AIX-style shared libraries and dynamic shared objects by default instead of svr4-style. This means that the default sudo plugins are now .a (archive) files that contain a .so shared object file instead of bare .so files. This was done to improve compatibility with the AIX Freeware ecosystem, specifically, the AIX Freeware build of OpenSSL. Sudo will still load svr4-style .so plugins and if a .so file is requested, either via sudo.conf or the sudoers file, and only the .a file is present, sudo will convert the path from plugin.so to plugin.a(plugin.so) when loading it. This ensures compatibility with existing configurations. To restore the old, pre-1.9.13 behavior, run configure using the –with-aix-soname=svr4 option.

• Sudo no longer checks the ownership and mode of the plugins that it loads. Plugins are configured via either the sudo.conf or sudoers file which are trusted configuration files. These checks suffered from time-of-check vs. time-of-use race conditions and complicate loading plugins that are not simple paths. Ownership and mode checks are still performed when loading the sudo.conf and sudoers files, which do not suffer from race conditions. The sudo.conf developer_mode setting is no longer used.

• Control characters in sudo log messages and sudoreplay -l output are now escaped in octal format. Space characters in the command path are also escaped. Command line arguments that contain spaces are surrounded by single quotes and any literal single quote or backslash characters are escaped with a backslash. This makes it possible to distinguish multiple command line arguments from a single argument that contains spaces.

• Improved support for DragonFly BSD which uses a different struct procinfo than either FreeBSD or 4.4BSD.

• Fixed a compilation error on Linux arm systems running older kernels that may not define EM_ARM in linux/elf-em.h. GitHub issue #232.

• Fixed a compilation error when LDFLAGS contains -Wl,–no-undefined. Sudo will now link using -Wl,–no-undefined by default if possible. GitHub issue #234.

• Fixed a bug executing a command with a very long argument vector when log_subcmds or intercept is enabled on a system where intercept_type is set to trace. GitHub issue #194.

• When sudo is configured to run a command in a pseudo-terminal but the standard input is not connected to a terminal, the command will now be run as a background process. This works around a problem running sudo commands in the background from a shell script where changing the terminal to raw mode could interfere with the interactive shell that ran the script. GitHub issue #237.

• A missing include file in sudoers is no longer a fatal error unless the error_recovery plugin argument has been set to false.