sudo Alerts – Fixing Annoying sudo Alerts Due to Defaults Entries

sudo

tl;dr

Sudo causes extra, useless alerts of "problem with defaults entries"

The environment

Ubuntu 16.04 Server LTS, sudo 1.8.16

The problem

Whenever a user (whether sssd-ad authenticated user, or local user, or root) uses sudo, it works. However, it also sends the administrator a useless email:

host1.example.com : Jun  6 14:40:44 : root : problem with defaults entries ; TTY=pts/2 ; PWD=/root ;

There are no defaults entries anymore! I removed them during my troubleshooting. I tried leaving them in. They were, by the way:

Defaults        env_reset
Defaults        mail_badpass
Defaults        secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

I cannot find the problem! I removed all my extra sudoers directives, and sudo (from root) still throws the error!

How do I make sudo stop sending me useless emails?

Best Answer

Solution

This problem is caused by sudo looking for directives in a place it cannot find them: sss. Check the /etc/nsswitch.conf file and modify the sudoers entry.

sudoers:        files sss

The sss should not be there. The sssd-ad package adds itself there, but very few environments store sudoers directives in sss. It’s far more likely your directives are local, so you should have a /etc/nsswitch file entry like the following:

sudoers:        files

References

A user of RHEL6 had the same issue. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=879633
The issue is solvable, including on Ubuntu 16.04 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sssd/+bug/1249777
https://bgstack15.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/solve-sudo-sending-useless-emails-problem-with-defaults-entries/

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