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Sudo for Windows

devblogs.microsoft.com

71–80 of 439 posts

Re: Sudo for Windows

#71
post #21

We already have runas for years now. This looks like one of those KPI fulfilling projects.

That requires you to open an new terminal window. You've never been working in a standard terminal, tried to run a command that requires elevation, and been annoyed that you have to open a new window losing your command history? Or forgot to Run As and opened a non-elevated terminal by accident?

"In this configuration, Sudo for Windows will open a new elevated console window and run the command in that window. This is the default configuration option when sudo is enabled"

Re: Sudo for Windows

#72
post #51

sudo on windows has a different risk profile given the malware ecosystem and lack of educated/ trained users. 95% of linux users are developers who understand risk -- though are prone to mistakes 99% of windows users are casual consumers . Let's keep this functionality narrowly accessible : restricted to developer mode and very formal consent. I suggest disabling it if it's unused for a few days this will only rejuve…

There's still the UAC prompt which should help mitigate risk, plus it's locked behind developer settings.

Re: Sudo for Windows

#73

This will be a very controversial prediction, but mark my words: Windows will eventually use the Linux kernel.

Windows NT linage has supported UNIX since day one.

While the original support wasn't great, SUA was quite usable, until they decided to discontinue it on Windows Vista.

Nowadays we have WSL, which makes more sense, given how many folks buy Apple hardware and then complain UNIX isn't GNU/Linux.

Re: Sudo for Windows

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that Microsoft is working on eventually moving Windows over to the Linux kernel, and all these things they are doing are setting the stage and preparing for an easier transition.

As I said on the other post, I strongly doubt that. It offers few benefits and many roadblocks. It would be a monstrous amount of work, would throw into question many existing security-related certifications, break Microsoft's love of backwards-compatibility, etc. All MS is trying to do is make it easier for developers to develop on Windows for Windows, which it has ample incentive to do both internally and externall…

I have been continually disappointed that Microsoft has not released a seamless Windows virtualization system. WindowsX would run the new, redesigned APIs, but all of the legacy could run inside a sandboxed system to give the world the required decades to finally transition.

Re: Sudo for Windows

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said on the other post, I strongly doubt that. It offers few benefits and many roadblocks. It would be a monstrous amount of work, would throw into question many existing security-related certifications, break Microsoft's love of backwards-compatibility, etc. All MS is trying to do is make it easier for developers to develop on Windows for Windows, which it has ample incentive to do both internally and externall…

I have been continually disappointed that Microsoft has not released a seamless Windows virtualization system. WindowsX would run the new, redesigned APIs, but all of the legacy could run inside a sandboxed system to give the world the required decades to finally transition.

This! I won't buy a Windows OS to run stuff because rebooting is annoying and I end up rarely ever actually dual booting. But I'd pay good money for a Windows Classic library on Linux.

Re: Sudo for Windows

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said on the other post, I strongly doubt that. It offers few benefits and many roadblocks. It would be a monstrous amount of work, would throw into question many existing security-related certifications, break Microsoft's love of backwards-compatibility, etc. All MS is trying to do is make it easier for developers to develop on Windows for Windows, which it has ample incentive to do both internally and externall…

I have been continually disappointed that Microsoft has not released a seamless Windows virtualization system. WindowsX would run the new, redesigned APIs, but all of the legacy could run inside a sandboxed system to give the world the required decades to finally transition.

Windows Subsystem for Windows?

Re: Sudo for Windows

#77
post #42

If it's just an alias for "runas" that presents a UAC prompt window I will be disappointed.

Initially I thought ur concern is crazy as hell, because who would implement it in such a painful way? But then I read >When elevating a process from the command-line with sudo, a UAC dialog will appear asking the user to confirm the elevation: LOL But it seems like there are other ways to use it without this dialog >In this configuration, sudo.exe will launch a new elevated console window and run the command in that…

There's no way that second use case doesn't show a UAC prompt.

The whole point of the split token / UAC elevation is to avoid elevation without user interaction. Imagine malware stuck as standard user just running itself like:

cmd.exe /c sudo malware.exe

Re: Sudo for Windows

#78
post #2

Yep, it's really happening. Sudo is coming to Windows. It's obviously not just a fork of the linux sudo - there's enough that's different about the permissions structure between OS's that just a straight port wouldn't make sense. But the dream of being able to run commands as admin, in the same terminal window - that's the experience we're finally bringing to users. I've been working on this for the last few months n…

I think they should've named it something else to avoid confusion, especially if it doesn't have the same behavior as unix sudo. If it has different arguments and features, imagine the confusion of unsuspecting users searching how to use sudo in the future.

Re: Sudo for Windows

#80
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting Microsoft in the UAC prompt is indeed weird. It should be the info of the target binary. This feature sounds a bit rushed, and it's early preview, maybe they fix it by the final release.

Yea, that's a limitation of UAC at this point, and probably not one we can avoid. The "Show details" dropdown on the dialog does however show the commandline you requested, so at least that's one way of making sure it's the thing you ran

The best way would be, if it could say something like:

Allow $PARENT_PROCESS_NAME to run $COMMAND with administrator rights.

So if you would enter the following in cmd.exe:

  sudo notepad.exe ...

It would say:

Allow Command Processor Shell to run notepad.exe ... with administrator rights.

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