On Sun, Jul 24, 2022 at 5:59 AM Tim via users <users@lists.fedoraproject.org> wrote:
Tim via users wrote:
>> It's far more convenient for me to open a terminal and "su -" so I
>> can do a mass of text editing setting up servers, than sudo each
>> thing (*).



Samuel Sieb:
> (*) "sudo -i"

I can't see any tangible difference between doing "su -" and then using
the command line as root user to do a pile of things, or starting off
by doing "sudo -i" instead (at least not in the Mate terminal).

I used to have a couple shell scripts that did setups for workstations and servers,
so a couple sudo's was all I needed (but each script took long enough that I did
have to enter a password each time). 

"su -" could be OK if you a) keep good notes, and b) are the only one using su.  Sudo
is very helpful where there are multiple admins working different hours or remotely, so
you can easily determine what the other person did.   What would happen if the
person using "su -" was riding a bike to work and got squished by a truck?

"sudo" has configuration to allow specific commands for some group, but as a
consequence, has an increased footprint for exploits (via bugs or misconfiguration).

"doas" may be better for those who don't actually need sudo features.  Both sudo and
doas command lines can be viewed in with journalctl, so there is less need to
manually make detailed notes.

--
George N. White III