trifectatechfoundation / trifectatechfoundation/sudo-rs

"I'm afraid I can't do that" error message is unclear

Open Beginner friendly
#1,659 9 comments 3 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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C-cli enhancement
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
4.5k
Forks
179
Avg merge
16h 45m
Merged PRs (30d)
4

Description

When a user is not in the sudoers group, the error message displayed is:

sudo: I'm sorry [user]. I'm afraid I can't do that.

Now, I appreciate a HAL 9000 reference as much as anyone, but an error message isn't really the place for that - it should tell the user as much as possible about what is wrong and why. The normal sudo error message is much more helpful:

[user] is not in the sudoers file.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Search the sudo-rs source for the exact “I'm sorry” or “I'm afraid I can't do that” message and trace the path for users who are not in the sudoers group. Update the message so it clearly explains the authorization problem, then verify the resulting output for that case.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
authorization, cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

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