this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
33 points (90.2% liked)

Linux

48364 readers
1503 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Run command as not-root

Hi everyone

At work, I have to run a command in an AWS instance. In that particular instance only exists the root user. The command should not be executed with root privileges (it executes mpirun, which is not recommended to run as sudo or the machine might break), so I was wondering if there is a way to block or disable the sudo privileges while the command is running. As mentioned, the only user existing there is root, so I suppose "sudo -u" is not an option.

Does anyone know how to do it? Thanks in advance!

@linux

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.uk 11 points 1 year ago

The system is broken. Wipe it and start again. I could imagine a system with no configured root but root only is just a security nightmare and not worth using as a starting point.

I really hope that machine isn't exposed to the internet..

In theory a root application can drop capabilities when it starts up and remain root pid, but it's not that common.. it's used for certain system apps that require root to increase security. It is not a replacement for unprivileged users.