Change Default Sudo Password Timeout – How to Guide

sudo -k Will kill the timeout timestamp. You can even put the command afterwards, like sudo -k test_my_privileges.sh

From man sudo:

-K The -K (sure kill) option is like -k except that it removes the user's time stamp entirely and may not be used in conjunction with a command or other option. This option does not require a password.

-k When used by itself, the -k (kill) option to sudo invalidates the user's time stamp by setting the time on it to the Epoch. The next time sudo is run a password will be required. This option does not require a password and was added to allow a user to revoke sudo permissions from a .logout file.

You can also change it permanently. From man sudoers:

timestamp_timeout

Number of minutes that can elapse before sudo will ask for a passwd again. The timeout may include a fractional component if minute granularity is insufficient, for example 2.5. The default is 5. Set this to 0 to always prompt for a password. If set to a value less than 0 the user's timestamp will never expire. This can be used to allow users to create or delete their own timestamps via sudo -v and sudo -k respectively.

I add this to my bash script:

# ask for password up-front.
sudo -v
# Keep-alive: update existing sudo time stamp if set, otherwise do nothing.
while true; do sudo -n true; sleep 60; kill -0 "$$" || exit; done 2>/dev/null &

Found it here:

https://serverfault.com/questions/266039/temporarlly-increasing-sudos-timeout-for-the-duration-of-an-install-script

https://gist.github.com/cowboy/3118588

I use another script to launch my main script and I use a .desktop file to launch that helper script. It's not very straightforward, but it can be made to work 100% GUI. I'm still looking for the perfect solution, but this is doing the trick for now.