sudoers_timestamp(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | DESCRIPTION | LOCKING | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS | BUGS | SUPPORT | DISCLAIMER | COLOPHON

SUDOERS_TIMESTAMP(5)     BSD File Formats Manual    SUDOERS_TIMESTAMP(5)

NAME         top

     sudoers_timestamp — Sudoers Time Stamp Format

DESCRIPTION         top

     The sudoers plugin uses per-user 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               0x01    /* not restricted by tty or ppid */
     #define TS_TTY                  0x02    /* restricted by tty */
     #define TS_PPID                 0x03    /* restricted by ppid */
     #define TS_LOCKEXCL             0x04    /* special lock record */

     /* Time stamp flags */
     #define TS_DISABLED             0x01    /* entry disabled */
     #define TS_ANYUID               0x02    /* 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 re-use 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.

LOCKING         top

     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         top

     sudoers(5), sudo(8)

HISTORY         top

     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 re-use of the time stamp
           file after logout.

     1.8.6p7
           The terminal session ID was added to tty-based time stamp
           files to prevent re-use of the time stamp by the same user in
           a different terminal session.  It also helped prevent re-use
           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 re-use 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.

AUTHORS         top

     Many people have worked on sudo over the years; this version
     consists of code written primarily by:

           Todd C. Miller

     See the CONTRIBUTORS file in the sudo distribution
     (https://www.sudo.ws/contributors.html) for an exhaustive list of
     people who have contributed to sudo.

BUGS         top

     If you feel you have found a bug in sudo, please submit a bug
     report at https://bugzilla.sudo.ws/

SUPPORT         top

     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         top

     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 file distributed with sudo or
     https://www.sudo.ws/license.html for complete details.

COLOPHON         top

     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 2020-12-18.  (At that
     time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
     repository was 2020-12-15.)  If you discover any rendering problems
     in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is a better
     or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
     improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which is not part
     of the original manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

Sudo 1.9.4p1                October 20, 2019                Sudo 1.9.4p1