[SOLVED] Howto: change default timeout (from 5 minutes) in sudo

[arnieboy]

Some of you might not like the default timeout of 5 minutes after which sudo asks for your password again in a session. To change that do the following:

sudo visudo

scroll down and add the following line at the end:

Defaults:user_name timestamp_timeout=10

1) Change user_name to your actual user name.
2) Change 10 (in minutes) to anything you wish. A value of -1 will make it infinite (for a single session).
3) Hit Ctrl-X and then hit Y.
You are all set!

[frodon]

Nice guide arnie

Does it work for dapper too ?

[arnieboy]

Nice guide arnie

Does it work for dapper too ?

works for all ubuntu releases frodon.

[Sammi]

So if I set it to infinite(-1), is there a manual way to turn superuser off after I use a sudo command?

[arnieboy]

So if I set it to infinite(-1), is there a manual way to turn superuser off after I use a sudo command?

superuser is not "ON" when u use sudo. u merely let your user account gain super user permissions.
if u set it to -1, the sudo password will not timeout till u log out of your account.

[Sammi]

I understand that much. Just wasn't clear enough in my previous post. The thing I was wondering is if there is another way of taking superuser priveledges away from the user account, after a sudo command with an infinite timer has been issued, other that logging off ofcourse?

If not then that option is kind of useless I think. Could just as well just make a root account if I wanted to stay in superuse mode all the time.

[BobSongs]

So if I set it to infinite(-1), is there a manual way to turn superuser off after I use a sudo command?

If you set sudo's time to infinite (-1) you can kill it at any time with the following

sudo -K

This works regardless how long you set sudo to last.

[Sammi]

There we go. Thx!

[karthick87]

Short and useful how to