adding a sudoer in debian

Question

After a long search on the web, trying everything I can find I came to ask you guys, how can I add an existing user to be a sudoer?

I've tried

usermod -a -G sudo user

and also

adduser user

both while in root... the first one didn't work at all and the second one supposedly added 'user' to sudoers but when I try to run sudo with that user it says: user is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

When I run adduser again, it says the user 'user' is already a member of 'sudo'.

what can I do???

-EDIT: for clarification, I do want the user to be prompted for a password when trying to run sudo. currently when the user is running sudo he is being prompted for a password and then he gets "user is not in sudoers file...." I wand him to be able to run sudo, be prompted and then escalate the privilege.

Solution 1

As root edit /etc/sudoers and place the following line:

youruser    ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

after

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo   ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

In this way you will be capable to execute all commands that require sudo privileges passwordless.

In order to use sudo and be prompted for a password you need to remove

NOPASSWD:ALL

Solution 2

Following command is correct and enough but you need to completely logout the user and relogin to work .

usermod -a -G sudo user

Solution 3

In addition, in Debian if it doesn't work you need to install sudo package:

apt install sudo

Then you should have /etc/sudoers file and proceed as follows:

usermod -a -G sudo user

Solution 4

You need to run the following command as root: (where USERNAME is replaced with your actual username)

usermod -aG sudo USERNAME

It won't work if you try to run this command under an unprivileged user.
So to gain root rights and to make sure that the necessary packages are installed, do this:

su
[enter password for your root user]
apt update
apt upgrade
apt install sudo
apt install usermod
usermod -ag sudo USERNAME
reboot

Don't forget to reboot at the end!
After the reboot the user should be able to use sudo commands.

Tip: if you tried to run a long command which failed because it actually requires sudoer rights, you can use the following trick to run the command again but this time with the correct privilege:

sudo !!

View more solutions

Comments

[ValarMorghulis]

where should I place the youruser ALL line? the %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL is already there

[Ivan P]

after the line: "%sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL" You should replace "youruser" with your username in the example.

[ValarMorghulis]

but I do want the user to be prompted for a password

[Ivan P]

use the following code: youruser ALL=(ALL) ALL

[Michael Platings]

I've found that logging out and logging in again often isn't enough, but a full restart is required.

[vhs]

If you've already manually created /etc/sudoers, an interactive prompt will ask you if you'd like to replace it with the default installed from Apt.

[sneaky]

If there is an (syntax) error in Your /etc/sudoers you may loose your sudo access at all.- Use visudo instead.