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The /etc/sudoers file contains a list of users or user groups with permission to execute a subset of commands while having the privileges of the root user or another specified user. The file is recommended [by whom?] to be edited by using the command sudo visudo. Sudo contains several configuration options such as allowing commands to be run as ...
The command sudo is related, and executes a command as another user but observes a set of constraints about which users can execute which commands as which other users (generally in a configuration file named /etc/sudoers, best editable by the command visudo).
The wheel group is a special user group used on some Unix systems, mostly BSD systems, [citation needed] to control access to the su [4] [5] or sudo command, which allows a user to masquerade as another user (usually the super user). [1] [2] [6] Debian and its derivatives create a group called sudo with purpose similar to that of a wheel group. [7]
The file owner is 'root' and the SUID permission is set (the '4') - so the file is executed as 'root'. The reason an executable would be run as 'root' is so that it can modify specific files that the user would not normally be allowed to, without giving the user full root access. A default use of this can be seen with the /usr/bin/passwd binary ...
The interpreter would execute one of a number of predefined commands, one of which would be to run a user program. Common commands would log the user on and off the system, allocate, free, and manipulate devices and files, and query various pieces of information about the system or a user process. [7]
In some cases, the actual name of the account is not the determining factor; on Unix-like systems, for example, the user with a user identifier (UID) of zero is the superuser [i.e., uid=0], regardless of the name of that account; [1] and in systems which implement a role-based security model, any user with the role of superuser (or its synonyms ...
In Linux, if the script was executed by a regular user, the shell would attempt to execute the command rm -rf / as a regular user, and the command would fail. However, if the script was executed by the root user, then the command would likely succeed and the filesystem would be erased. It is recommended to use sudo on a per-command basis instead.
Interpreter directives allow scripts and data files to be used as commands, hiding the details of their implementation from users and other programs, by removing the need to prefix scripts with their interpreter on the command line. For example, consider a script having the initial line #!/bin/sh -x.