Recently I was asked the same question both at my workplace and at EuroBSDCon, the conference where I was presenting: where do you talk next? I had no definite answer. Of course, I am looking forward to the FOSDEM CfP, but I am also looking for new conferences to present syslog-ng and sudo. Do you have any recommendations? You can read the rest of my blog at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/where-should-i-present-syslog-ng-and-sudo syslog-ng logo Sudo logo

EuroBSDCon was fantastic, as always :-) I talked to many interesting people during the four days about sudo and syslog-ng, and of course also about many other topics. I gave a sudo tutorial, and it went well, with some “students” already planning which features to implement at home. There were many good talks, including one from Dr. Marshall Kirk McKusick, who was with the FreeBSD project right from the beginning, and worked on BSD even earlier.

Sudo 1.9.16 is now out, containing mostly bug fixes. However, there are also some new features, like the json_compact option I wrote about a while ago. The other major change is, secure_path is now enabled by default in the sudoers file, and there is a new option to fine-tune its content. Read more at https://www.sudo.ws/posts/2024/09/why-sudo-1.9.16-enables-secure_path-by-default/ Sudo logo

A few weeks ago I was in Lille, France for Pass the SALT, a conference focused on open-source software and security, and gave a training on sudo. Ever since the conference, I’ve been approached by people asking if I could give sudo training(s) for or through their organization. Instead of writing a short answer to everyone in private, here is more detailed public response. The short answer: it depends :-)

Version 1.9.16 of sudo will introduce a new logging option: json_compact. This does not affect logging to syslog, only logging to files. Previously, sudo created human-readable JSON log files. With this new setting enabled, logs are no longer pretty but can be easily read by logging software. As I am writing this blog, version 1.9.16 is not yet released, not even a beta. For now, if you want to test this feature, you will have to compile sudo yourself from source.

Version 1.9.16 of sudo will feature a new option for logging: json_compact. Why is this important? This new format can easily be read and parsed by a log management software, like syslog-ng. Note that in this blog I am showing you a sudo feature which has not yet been released officially. You have to compile sudo yourself. By all means, if you have any other application writing JSON-formatted log messages, you can apply most of what you read here with slight modifications.

Version 1.9.15 of sudo gives more detailed information when using the -ll option. For commands, it adds the rule that allows it. Without a command parameter, it lists rules affecting a given user. It also prints which file contains the given rule, making debugging easier. You can read more about it at https://www.sudo.ws/posts/2023/11/more-info-with-ll-in-sudo-1.9.15/ Sudo logo

From now on, as I want to reach as many as possible, you can also read sudo and syslog-ng news from me on Mastodon. You can find my account at: https://fosstodon.org/@PCzanik Mastodon is a decentralized network of servers. I chose a server called “Fosstodon” as it is focused on open source software. Some of the projects I participate in are already there: BastilleBSD and openSUSE. As usual, next to my usual syslog-ng and sudo posts, you will also sometimes hear from me about OpenPOWER and ARM with some occasional photos from my hiking trips :-)

One of the recurring questions at conferences was whether there is a way to check cached sudo credentials without updating them. Version 1.9.12 of sudo introduces the -N option which makes this possible, and also allows running any commands without updating the cached credentials. You can learn more about the new -N option in my latest sudo blog at https://www.sudo.ws/posts/2022/10/running-sudo-without-updating-cached-credentials/ Sudo logo

Sudo is one of the most used command line tools in the Linux / UNIX / macOS world. It gives users the ability to execute commands as another user. Most often it is used to gain root (administrator) privileges. Sudo was created when there were a small number of independent large systems. Some support for multiple hosts, central management and monitoring were later added to it. These tools do their jobs, however large enterprises require ease of use, reporting and monitoring.

Whether attending conferences or reading blogs, I often hear several misconceptions about sudo. Most of these misconceptions focus on security, flexibility, and central management. In this article, I will debunk some of these myths. Many misconceptions likely arise because users know only the basic functionality of sudo. The sudoers file, by default, has only two rules: The root user, and members of the administrative wheel group, can do practically anything using sudo.

“Pass the SALT” (PTS) is a small IT security conference in Lille, France. It has less participants than speakers at the RSA conference. I gave talks at both events. RSA is a lot more prestigious event, but I still prefer PTS. Why? Small Is Beautiful As you could guess from my introduction, PTS is a small event. It is run by volunteers. It is also a free event thanks to sponsors.

There are situations where you cannot avoid giving a user full shell access through sudo. A shell with administrative privileges gives complete control over your hosts. Until recently, sudo could only log the start of the shell, not the commands executed within it. You could record sessions with sudo, but watching recordings is boring, time consuming and can still be subverted. Version 1.9.8 introduced logging of sub-commands, but that is not yet available on many systems.

I’m not superstitious, so I never really cared about black cats, Friday the 13th, and other signs of (imagined) trouble. Last Friday (which was the 13th) I had an article printed in a leading computer magazine in Hungary, and I gave my first IRL talk at a conference in well over two years. Best of all, I also met many people, some for the first time in real life. Free Software Conference: sudo talk Last Friday, I gave a talk at the Free Software Conference in Szeged.

Sudo had many features to help blue teams in their daily job even before 1.9 was released. Session recordings, plugins and others made sure that most administrative access could be controlled and problems easily detected. Version 1.9 introduced Python support, new APIs, centralized session recordings, however some blind spots still remained. Learn how some of the latest sudo features can help you to better control and log administrative access to your hosts.

Session recording has been available in sudo for many years, however not many people are aware of it. Even less well-known is that you can save not just the terminal output, but also what the user types. That way you can analyze what the user is doing within a shell session. Recordings may also include user passwords, which is not always desirable. Version 1.9.10 of sudo allows you to hide passwords in session recordings if it recognizes a password entry.

It has been possible to use wildcards in the sudoers file for many years. This can make configuration easier and more flexible, but it also introduces problems of its own. Regular expressions, introduced in in sudo 1.9.10, allow you to create more fine grained rules. From this blog you will learn about some of the problems when you use wildcards in your sudoers file, and how using regular expressions can resolve those problems.

Those who follow me on LinkedIn might have seen an automatic post about my work anniversary. Well, almost nothing of that post is true, but I still consider it to be my real starting date. However, the official date is also impressive: 11.5 years, almost three times the industry average spent at the same workplace. So, why do I say that the LinkedIn post is not true? Well, because all its major facts are wrong.

I spent my last weekend in Brussels at FOSDEM. Well, not really: while I had a couple of Belgian beers, the conference itself was a virtual event and I was at home in Budapest. It’s the second year that FOSDEM is virtual, and yet again I can state that it’s the best virtual event of the year. I had two talks this year. After my second talk, I got some questions during the Q & A session which I could not answer, so I will try to answer them.

We learned in my previous sudo blog that cvtsudoers is not just for LDAP. Version 1.9.9 of sudo extends the querying possibilities of cvtsudoers further and adds a brand new feature: merging multiple sudoers files into one. Both are especially useful when you have complex configurations. Querying lets you to better understand what the various rules allow in your sudoers file. Merging helps you to combine multiple configurations into one, so you do not have to maintain a separate sudoers file on each of your hosts.

This weekend I am going to give a talk about sudo in the security track of FOSDEM. I will talk a few words about logging at each major point I mention, but I cannot go into too much detail there. So, consider this blog both as a teaser and an extension to my FOSDEM talk. You will learn how to work with JSON formatted logs in syslog-ng and also about new sudo features along the way.

Version 1.9 of sudo was released almost two years ago. One of the major new features was support for Python plugins. Previously, you could only extend sudo by coding in C to better suit your environment, which is not the easiest task to manage. Python makes both coding and distributing the results easier. Starting with Safeguard for Sudo 7.2, Python support is also available in a commercial sudo management solution.

A month ago, when sudo 1.9.8 was still under development, we checked out the new log_subcmds option. It allows you log all commands (with some limitations) that are executed by a command started through sudo. For example, you can see if a shell was started through a text editor. The intercept option brings this one step further: you can prevent sub-commands from even running. Read the rest of my blog at https://blog.

Sudo development is at version 1.9.8 beta 3. There are two major new features: sudo can intercept sub-commands and log sub-commands. In this quick teaser I introduce you to log_subcmds. I hope it is interesting enough for you to test it out and provide feedback. So, what is log_subcmds good for? There are many UNIX tools that can spawn external applications. You only see vi in the logs, but can you be sure without session recording that your admin only edits what he is supposed to?

Securing the sudo to sudo_logsrvd connection Using sudo_logsrvd to centrally collect sudo session recordings from your network is a huge step forward in security: users cannot delete or modify session recordings locally. However, by default, transmission of recordings is not encrypted, making it open to modifications and eavesdropping. Encrypting the connection between sudo and sudo_logsrvd can eliminate these problems. Larger environments usually either have in-house PKI tooling in place, or colleagues who know all openssl options off the top of their heads.