sudoers_timestamp(5) — Linux manual page
SUDOERS_TIMESTAMP(5) File Formats Manual SUDOERS_TIMESTAMP(5)
NAME
sudoers_timestamp — Sudoers Time Stamp Format
DESCRIPTION
The sudoers plugin uses per-user-ID time stamp files for
credential caching. Once a user has been authenticated, they may
use sudo without a password for a short period of time (5 minutes
unless overridden by the timestamp_timeout option). By default,
sudoers uses a separate record for each terminal, which means
that a user's login sessions are authenticated separately. The
timestamp_type option can be used to select the type of time
stamp record sudoers will use.
A multi-record time stamp file format was introduced in sudo
1.8.10 that uses a single file per user. Previously, a separate
file was used for each user and terminal combination unless tty-
based time stamps were disabled. The new format is extensible
and records of multiple types and versions may coexist within the
same file.
All records, regardless of type or version, begin with a 16-bit
version number and a 16-bit record size.
Time stamp records have the following structure:
/* Time stamp entry types */
#define TS_GLOBAL 0x01U /* not restricted by tty or ppid */
#define TS_TTY 0x02U /* restricted by tty */
#define TS_PPID 0x03U /* restricted by ppid */
#define TS_LOCKEXCL 0x04U /* special lock record */
/* Time stamp flags */
#define TS_DISABLED 0x01U /* entry disabled */
#define TS_ANYUID 0x02U /* ignore uid, only valid in key */
struct timestamp_entry {
unsigned short version; /* version number */
unsigned short size; /* entry size */
unsigned short type; /* TS_GLOBAL, TS_TTY, TS_PPID */
unsigned short flags; /* TS_DISABLED, TS_ANYUID */
uid_t auth_uid; /* uid to authenticate as */
pid_t sid; /* session ID associated with tty/ppid */
struct timespec start_time; /* session/ppid start time */
struct timespec ts; /* time stamp (CLOCK_MONOTONIC) */
union {
dev_t ttydev; /* tty device number */
pid_t ppid; /* parent pid */
} u;
};
The timestamp_entry struct fields are as follows:
version
The version number of the timestamp_entry struct. New
entries are created with a version number of 2. Records
with different version numbers may coexist in the same file
but are not inter-operable.
size The size of the record in bytes.
type The record type, currently TS_GLOBAL, TS_TTY, or TS_PPID.
flags
Zero or more record flags which can be bit-wise ORed
together. Supported flags are TS_DISABLED, for records
disabled via sudo -k and TS_ANYUID, which is used only when
matching records.
auth_uid
The user-ID that was used for authentication. Depending on
the value of the rootpw, runaspw and targetpw options, the
user-ID may be that of the invoking user, the root user,
the default runas user or the target user.
sid The ID of the user's terminal session, if present. The
session ID is only used when matching records of type
TS_TTY.
start_time
The start time of the session leader for records of type
TS_TTY or of the parent process for records of type
TS_PPID. The start_time is used to help prevent reuse of a
time stamp record after a user has logged out. Not all
systems support a method to easily retrieve a process's
start time. The start_time field was added in sudoers
version 1.8.22 for the second revision of the
timestamp_entry struct.
ts The actual time stamp. A monotonic time source (which does
not move backward) is used if the system supports it.
Where possible, sudoers uses a monotonic timer that
increments even while the system is suspended. The value
of ts is updated each time a command is run via sudo. If
the difference between ts and the current time is less than
the value of the timestamp_timeout option, no password is
required.
u.ttydev
The device number of the terminal associated with the
session for records of type TS_TTY.
u.ppid
The ID of the parent process for records of type TS_PPID.
The tsdump utility, included with the sudo source distribution,
can be used to display the contents of a sudoers time stamp file.
LOCKING
In sudoers versions 1.8.10 through 1.8.14, the entire time stamp
file was locked for exclusive access when reading or writing to
the file. Starting in sudoers 1.8.15, individual records are
locked in the time stamp file instead of the entire file and the
lock is held for a longer period of time. This scheme is
described below.
The first record in the time stamp file is of type TS_LOCKEXCL
and is used as a lock record to prevent more than one sudo
process from adding a new record at the same time. Once the
desired time stamp record has been located or created (and
locked), the TS_LOCKEXCL record is unlocked. The lock on the
individual time stamp record, however, is held until
authentication is complete. This allows sudoers to avoid
prompting for a password multiple times when it is used more than
once in a pipeline.
Records of type TS_GLOBAL cannot be locked for a long period of
time since doing so would interfere with other sudo processes.
Instead, a separate lock record is used to prevent multiple sudo
processes using the same terminal (or parent process ID) from
prompting for a password as the same time.
SEE ALSO
sudoers(5), sudo(8)
HISTORY
Originally, sudo used a single zero-length file per user and the
file's modification time was used as the time stamp. Later
versions of sudo added restrictions on the ownership of the time
stamp files and directory as well as checks on the validity of
the time stamp itself. Notable changes were introduced in the
following sudo versions:
1.4.0
Support for tty-based time stamp file was added by
appending the terminal name to the time stamp file name.
1.6.2
The time stamp file was replaced by a per-user directory
which contained any tty-based time stamp files.
1.6.3p2
The target user name was added to the time stamp file name
when the targetpw option was set.
1.7.3
Information about the terminal device was stored in tty-
based time stamp files for validity checks. This included
the terminal device numbers, inode number and, on systems
where it was not updated when the device was written to,
the inode change time. This helped prevent reuse of the
time stamp file after logout.
1.8.6p7
The terminal session ID was added to tty-based time stamp
files to prevent reuse of the time stamp by the same user
in a different terminal session. It also helped prevent
reuse of the time stamp file on systems where the terminal
device's inode change time was updated by writing.
1.8.10
A new, multi-record time stamp file format was introduced
that uses a single file per user. The terminal device's
change time was not included since most systems now update
the change time after a write is performed as required by
POSIX.
1.8.15
Individual records are locked in the time stamp file
instead of the entire file and the lock is held until
authentication is complete.
1.8.22
The start time of the terminal session leader or parent
process is now stored in non-global time stamp records.
This prevents reuse of the time stamp file after logout in
most cases.
Support was added for the kernel-based tty time stamps
available in OpenBSD which do not use an on-disk time stamp
file.
1.9.15
Time stamp file path names are now based on the invoking
user-ID instead of the user name. This avoids problems
with user names that include a path separator character.
AUTHORS
Many people have worked on sudo over the years; this version
consists of code written primarily by:
Todd C. Miller
See the CONTRIBUTORS.md file in the sudo distribution
(https://www.sudo.ws/about/contributors/) for an exhaustive list
of people who have contributed to sudo.
BUGS
If you believe you have found a bug in , you can either file a
bug report in the sudo bug database, https://bugzilla.sudo.ws/,
or open an issue at https://github.com/sudo-project/sudo/issues.
If you would prefer to use email, messages may be sent to the
sudo-workers mailing list,
https://www.sudo.ws/mailman/listinfo/sudo-workers (public) or
<sudo@sudo.ws> (private).
Please not report security vulnerabilities through public GitHub
issues, Bugzilla or mailing lists. Instead, report them via
email to <Todd.Miller@sudo.ws>. You may encrypt your message
with PGP if you would like, using the key found at
https://www.sudo.ws/dist/PGPKEYS.
SUPPORT
Limited free support is available via the sudo-users mailing
list, see https://www.sudo.ws/mailman/listinfo/sudo-users to
subscribe or search the archives.
DISCLAIMER
sudo is provided “AS IS” and any express or implied warranties,
including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of
merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are
disclaimed. See the LICENSE.md file distributed with sudo or
https://www.sudo.ws/about/license/ for complete details.
COLOPHON
This page is part of the sudo (execute a command as another user)
project. Information about the project can be found at
https://www.sudo.ws/. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨https://bugzilla.sudo.ws/⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/sudo-project/sudo⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2024-06-08.) If you discover any rendering
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