SUDO(1)

📦
version 0.2.0 · 4 versions
, in alpine 3.24

💅 SUDO(1) — the group chat version 🎀

okay so bestie, you're reading the SUDO(1) page from section 1 of the manual (general commands, iykyk), and honestly? this one's a whole personality. it's sudo, but make it doas. let's get into it ✨

✨ NAME ✨

sudo — execute a command as another user using doas. literally that's it, that's the vibe 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

sudo (-i | -s) [-k] [-n] [-u <user>] [<command> [--] [<args>...]]
sudo [-ikns] [-u <user>] <command> [--] [<args>...]
sudo -k
sudo [-h]

look at all those little bracket combos, she's giving options 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

bestie, important lore first: this is NOT the original sudo(8). it's a shim for the sudo command that leans on doas(1) to do the actual work. no cap.

so what does it support? only a subset of the sudo(8) options (both short and long variants) that have an equivalent in doas(1), plus the extra-special options -i (--login) and -k (--reset-timestamp). that's the whole menu, nothing more 🙈

if you want the real tea, go read doas(1) and sudo(8). they're the source material. 📚

💖 OPTIONS 💖

  • -i, --login — runs the shell listed in the target user's password database entry as a login shell. translation: login-specific resource files like .profile, .bash_profile or .login get read by the shell. if you pass a command, it gets handed to the shell for execution via the shell's -c option. if you pass no command, you get an interactive shell. and this shim tries to change into that user's home directory right after running the shell 🏠
  • -k, --reset-timestamp — invalidates the user's cached credentials by running doas(1) with the -L option. used with no command, it clears the cached credentials and just peaces out ✌️
⚠️ WARNING: when you use this with a command, it's only an approximation, bestie. unlike sudo(8), OpenDoas can't ignore the cached credential for a single invocation while also preventing the timestamp from being refreshed. so this shim calls doas -L before and after the command instead — which is not atomic and may leave or expose a refreshed timestamp if it gets interrupted or used concurrently! 💀 seriously, read that twice.
  • -n, --non-interactive — non-interactive mode: it fails if the matching rule doesn't have the nopass option. no prompts, no small talk, just vibes and consequences 😤
  • -s, --shell — runs the shell specified by the SHELL environment variable if it's set, or else the shell specified by the invoking user's password database entry. if you pass a command, it goes to the shell for execution via the shell's -c option. if you pass no command, you get an interactive shell 🐚 heads up though: most shells behave differently when a command is specified compared to an interactive session — so consult the shell's manual for the deets, i don't make the rules 📖
  • -u <user>, --user <user> — run the command as a user other than the default target user (which is usually root). the user can be either a user name or a numeric user-ID (UID). and here's the glow-up: unlike in the original sudo(8), numeric UIDs don't have to be prefixed with the # character, and only UIDs listed in the password database are allowed 👑
  • -h, --help — prints the help message and exits. the "i'm lost" button 🫶

🎀 FILES 🎀

refer to doas(1). that's the whole section, she's short and mysterious 💜

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

this shim sets the following environment variables for compatibility with sudo(8). BUT — and this is the catch — they must be explicitly allowed in doas.conf(5) (using setenv or keepenv) to actually be exported into the created environment. no permission, no vibes 🚫

  • SUDO_GID — set to the group-ID of the user who invoked sudo.
  • SUDO_UID — set to the user-ID of the user who invoked sudo.
  • SUDO_USER — set to the login name of the user who invoked sudo.

refer to doas(1) for more info, as always 🧚

⭐ EXIT CODES ⭐

refer to doas(1). yep, that's it, go look 👀

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Jakub Jirutka — the icon, the legend, the main character who wrote this 🫡

🍓 REPORTING BUGS 🍓

found a bug? report it to the project's issue tracker at https://github.com/jirutka/doas-sudo-shim/issues. don't just suffer in silence, bestie 😭

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

doas(1) doas.conf(5) sudo(8)

the whole friend group, all here 💖

and that's the tea ☕ — this page came from the 2026-06-09 build (that's the date, ✨ iconic ✨), so go forth and sudo responsibly, bestie. mwah 💋🎀

📦 where this page comes from