Adding Regular User To Sudoers File In Linux

Hi everybody, this time I am writing about the different command line methods of adding regular user to the sudoers file in linux or in more obvious way, giving access to root privilege to certain regular users. The sudoers file(located at /etc/sudoers by default[in my distro i.e. ubuntu]) contains the information of groups and users who can execute commands with root privilege. I'll list 3 ways of adding users to the sudoers list so continue reading the post.

Method 1
The first way is to use the usermod command to append the user to the admin group. Since the admin group has the privilege of executing commands with sudo privilege, adding the user to the admin group is one easy way to add regular user to the sudoers file. The example command is as below(Replace user with the proper username which you want to add to sudoers list):

sudo usermod -a -G admin user

Method 2
This method is similar as above however the command is adduser this time and the command is even more simpler to remember. Just specify the respective user to be added to the admin group as below:

sudo adduser user admin

Method 3
The last method I'm writing about is the safe way of editing sudoers files. Linux advises to use visudo command to edit /etc/sudoers so that possible errors while writing in sudoers file can be avoided. Typing just visudo would open the /etc/sudoers file for editing, and in case, if you want to edit sudoer file in alternate location, type visudo -f sudoer_with_path. Anyway, to add new user to the default sudoers file, type sudo visudo and add the line as below(Replace user with the proper username to whom you want to give sudo privilege) at the end of file:

user ALL = (ALL) ALL

I hope these methods come useful for you.