Sudo timeout driving me crazy. How can I extend the timeout?

I have read that after entering sudo followed by a command, and entering my password, the terminal should remember my password for 15 min so that I don't have to reenter my password for each command.

However, my sudo timeout seems to be zero. It makes me reenter the word sudo in front of every command line and reenter my password each time too.

How can I edit the sudoers file to set the time out to 15 minutes?

I haven't changed it myself, but it's in the wiki:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudoTimeout

Hi

Quote:

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Originally Posted by charleswb

I have read that after entering sudo followed by a command, and entering my password, the terminal should remember my password for 15 min so that I don't have to reenter my password for each command.

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From

Code:

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man sudoers

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.

Quote:

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Once a user has been authenticated, a time stamp is updated and the user may then use sudo without a
password for a short period of time (15 minutes unless overridden by the timeout option.

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As you state, the default timeout is 15 mins.

Quote:

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However, my sudo timeout seems to be zero. It makes me reenter the word sudo in front of every command line and reenter my password each time too.

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You will always have to enter sudo before a command if you want to run that command with elevated privileges.

You should not have to enter your password each time though.

Quote:

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How can I edit the sudoers file to set the time out to 15 minutes?

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First thing i would check would be your sudoers file.

Open a terminal and type

Code:

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sudo visudo

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Look for a line containing the word

Code:

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Defaults

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and see if it has the text

Code:

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timestamp_timeout

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. If it does then remove it.

IE. If you see a line that looks something like this

Code:

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Defaults        env_reset, timestamp_timeout=0

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Change it to this.

Code:

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Defaults        env_reset

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i.e remove the reference to timestamp_timeout=X from the file.

Be very careful when editing the file (although using visudo should perform checks for you). If in doubt post the contents of the file here so we can look before modify it.

After that i would check the timestamps directories below the directory

Code:

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/var/lib/sudo/

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EDIT: Beaten to it. That will teach me for writing a novel :)

Kind regards

Thanks, I haven't yet tried the above, but that should cover it.

P.S. - I'm not sure if a tech who worked on my computer in the past changed my timeout, or if I just didn't understand. I will work through the above advice step-by-step and figure it out.

Thanks again.

Be careful charleswb everyone has messed up this file at one time or another. Follow your directions closely. I use nano as a editor each has there preference.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sudoers
sign before letters at bottom means ctrl.
click on screenshot below. Just in case http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/fixsudo