Is there a way to require a user to wait a certain time instead of asking for a password every time he wants to execute a command as root or access the root / or another user account?

  •  Arthur Besse   ( @cypherpunks@lemmy.ml ) English
    17•22 days ago

    sure. first, configure sudo to be passwordless, or perhaps just to stay unlocked for longer (it’s easy to find instructions for how to do that).

    then, put this in your ~/.bashrc:

    alias sudo='echo -n "are you sure? "; for i in $(seq 5); do echo -n "$((6 - $i)) "; sleep 1; done && echo && /usr/bin/sudo '

    Now “sudo” will give you a 5 second countdown (during which you can hit ctrl-c if you change your mind) before running whatever command you ask it to.

    •  Flyswat   ( @Flyswat@lemmy.ml ) 
      6•22 days ago

      In terms of security, an alias can be easily overridden by a user who can even choose yo use another shell which will not read .bashrc.

      So this solution cannot force/require the user to comply to the delay requirement.

      I was thinking maybe with a PAM module the delay can be achieved but I haven’t found one that readily does that. Maybe OP needs to implement one :)

      •  alphadont   ( @alphadont@lemmy.ca ) English
        1•18 days ago

        If an untrusted user is sitting at the console of a sudoer account, armed with its password, all is lost and any security has effectively been defeated already. While I do understand the concern it seems like something of a moot point.

  •  mina86   ( @mina86@lemmy.wtf ) English
    8•21 days ago

    Sure, though I advise against it. The following C program can do that:

    #include 
#include 
#include 

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
	if (argc < 2) {
		fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s  ...", argv[0]);
		return EXIT_FAILURE;
	}

	printf("Executing");
	for (int i = 1; i < argc; ++i) {
		printf(" %s", argv[i]);
	}
	puts("\nPress ^C to abort.");
	sleep(5);

	if (setuid(0)) {
		perror("setuid");
		return EXIT_FAILURE;
	}

	execvp(argv[1], argv + 1);
	perror(argv[1]);
	return EXIT_FAILURE;
}

    As seen in:

    $ gcc -O2 -o delay-su delay-su.c
$ sudo chown root:sudo delay-su
$ sudo chmod 4750 delay-su
$ ./delay-su id
$ id -u
1000
$ ./delay-su id -u
Executing id -u
^C to abort
0

    This will allow anyone in group sudo to execute any command as root. You may change the group to something else to control who exactly can run the program (you cannot change the user of the program).

    If there’s some specific command you want to run, it’s better to hard-code it or configure sudo to allow execution of that command without password.

  •  Peter G   ( @peterg75@discuss.online ) 
    3•22 days ago

    This would literally render sudo utterly useless. Sudo is meant to require password to accomplish admin tasks. In your scenario anyone using your computer can do anything without knowing the password.

  •  terminal   ( @terminal@lemmy.ml ) 
    1•22 days ago

    Do you mean the delay between when you need to re-enter the superuser password?

    I found this via an LLM:

    To change the delay before needing to re-enter your sudo password, follow these steps:

    1. Open the terminal and run:

      sudo visudo

    2. Locate the line:

      Defaults env_reset

    3. Add the following line below it:

      Defaults timestamp_timeout=

      Replace `` with the desired timeout in minutes (e.g., 30 for 30 minutes). Setting it to 0 requires a password every time, while a negative value disables the timeout entirely.