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I recently got into trouble because of this.

$sudo vim /etc/motd 
[sudo] password for bruce: 
bruce is not in the sudoers file.  This incident will be reported.

Is there a way to check if I have sudo access or not?

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Ask your systems administrator? –  mdpc Feb 18 '13 at 19:40
@mdpc: Is there another way besides that? –  Bruce Feb 18 '13 at 19:45
You have not mentioned if you can attain root access or not. –  mdpc Feb 18 '13 at 19:46
This has to be the first instance of seeing someone following up on "This incident will be reported". –  slhck Feb 18 '13 at 19:55
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2 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

Run sudo -v. It is usually used to extend your sudo password timeout, but can be used for determining whether you have any sudo privileges.

$ sudo -v
Sorry, user [username] may not run sudo on [hostname].

Man page excerpt:

If given the -v (validate) option, sudo will update the user’s time stamp, prompting for the user’s password if necessary. This extends the sudo timeout for another 5 minutes (or whatever the timeout is set to in sudoers) but does not run a command.

If your user is only allowed to run specific commands, this command will work, indicating you are allowed to run something with different privileges. While the message looks different when trying to execute a command you're not allowed to in this case (and no mail is sent to root), it's still possible you'll get into trouble if the admins read /var/log/secure.

$ sudo ls
[sudo] password for [username]: 
Sorry, user [username] is not allowed to execute '/bin/ls' as root on [hostname].

To find out what you're allowed to run with different privileges, you can use sudo -l. Note that this command requires you to enter your password.

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Thanks. sudo -v works for me. The man page says I can run sudo -l as well but that asks for a password. Why is that? –  Bruce Feb 18 '13 at 20:00
@Bruce I'm guessing here, but otherwise someone (or a program you run) could find out what programs can be executed (possibly without entering password) by your current user and try to use that information maliciously. –  Daniel Beck Feb 18 '13 at 20:05
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Follow these steps to view the sudoers file. If you're in there, you have sudo. If not, you can add yourself.

  1. su
  2. visudo
  3. Bottom of the file, enter your_username_here ALL=(ALL) ALL
  4. Hit ESC and type :wq
  5. Type exit
  6. Re-run your command that needed sudo
  7. Enter your password (not the root's password)
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