[nzlug] OMG, I can no longer run 'sudo' !

[Craig Box]

On Sat, 2006-08-12 at 09:21 +1200, Sid Bachtiar wrote:
> I executed 'sudo usermod -G sid www-data' as suggested in one thread
> here and now I can no longer run sudo! I tried loging in as root, but
> it won't let me. What do I do? How do I login as sudo?

Oops.  I never remember this, and always go back to the man page...

   -G group1[,group2,...,[groupN]]]
         A list of supplementary groups which the user is also a member
         of. Each group is separated from the next by a comma, with no
         intervening whitespace. The groups are subject to the same
         restrictions as the group given with the -g option. If the user
         is currently a member of a group which is not listed, the user
         will be removed from the group. This behaviour can be changed
         via -a option, which appends user to the current supplementary
         group list.

So, you wanted to use -a.

By default, on an Ubuntu machine, you should have been a member of..

sid adm dialout cdrom floppy audio dip video plugdev lpadmin scanner
admin

It is membership of the 'admin' group that grants you sudo access.

Sorry for cocking this up for you!

Craig