Definition:

  • edit the sudoers file
  • locks the sudoers file against multiple simultaneous edits, performs basic validity checks, and checks for syntax errors before installing the edited file

Synopsis:

  • visudo [-chOPqsV] [[-f] sudoers]

List of options:

  • -c, --check
    • Enable check-only mode.
    • The existing sudoers file (and any other files it includes) will be checked for syntax errors
  • -f sudoers, --file=sudoers
    • Specify an alternate sudoers file location, see below.
  • -s, --strict
    • Enable strict checking of the sudoers file.
      • If an alias is referenced but not actually defined or if there is a cycle in an alias, visudo will consider this a syntax error.
      • Note that it is not possible to differentiate between an alias and a host name or user name that consists solely of uppercase letters, digits, and the underscore (‘_’) character.