Unix administration - Re: Beginner Question: Allowing sudo to vi hosts file

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Re: Beginner Question: Allowing sudo to vi hosts file

Michael Paoli

2006-07-23, 1:21 pm

underh20.scubadiving@gmail.com wrote:
> We've been asked to allow a user to update (add/modify/delete)
> lines in the /etc/inet/hosts file. That file is currently has
> permission 644. Could we use
> sudo to only allow that user to "vi" and modify that file ? If yes,
> how do we set
> that up in the /etc/sudoers file ?

vi is far too unrestricted (and also generally big and complex) to be
securely used by root to only and exactly edit one specific file
pathname and not be allowed to do anything else.

What's wrong with:
$ vi hosts
$ sudo /bin/cp hosts /etc/inet/hosts

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."
- Albert Einstein