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I usually use Linux as my standard working system and I learned a lot from actually using it. For this particular question I found no answer yet.

The sudo command usually remembers me typing in my password for a given time (usually 15 minutes I guess). Is it possible to extend this time to an undefined length but instead ask for the password again after locking my screen?

I always lock my screen when I leave my computer alone (even for seconds) and would like to not always retype my password when doing something.

I dont want to disable the password check in general. If I let anyone doing anything on my computer they still shouldnt be able to use the sudo command without me typing it once first.

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  • What does your research say?
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 29, 2016 at 13:36
  • An alternative solution would be to keep a su termial open for commands that need sudo-powers and to just make sure that you password lock your screen when leaving.
    – jadsq
    Commented Sep 29, 2016 at 13:36
  • My research indicates that basically it would involve running a bash script in the background, that keeps sudo active, sort of a hack if you wask me. Although given that it is possible on OS X I can't imagine Ubuntu does not have something similar. So what does your research show is the case?
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 29, 2016 at 13:39
  • I haven't found anything regarding this to be honest. There seems to be no functionality for this but the answer I selected is promising.
    – Alex
    Commented Oct 3, 2016 at 13:15
  • look into your /etc/pam.d/ files, you should be able to set a more desirable timeout/ memory of sudo there.
    – linuxdev2013
    Commented Oct 4, 2016 at 19:26

1 Answer 1

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If you can make your screen-lock mechanism run an extra command on locking, then you can edit /etc/sudoers to add a line for your user id, eg myname, which says

Defaults:myname timestamp_timeout=-1

This makes the timeout infinite. To revoke your sudo rights explicitly, run sudo -k from your screen-lock.

As usual when editing this file take precautions, eg use sudo visudo and ensure you have a root shell ready in some other terminal.

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  • This sounds like a wonderful idea. Will try it and check back as soon as I was able to. Sounds like this is the solution.
    – Alex
    Commented Oct 3, 2016 at 13:16

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