Cool tip - show asterisks when typing sudo password.

[oshunluvr]

Saw this on G+ and thought it was a cool change: https://www.tecmint.com/show-asteris...word-in-linux/

Gives you asterisk feedback when you type your sudo password in a terminal. Neat.

[Snowhog]

Nice to know this 'how to' about sudo. But, from a conspiracy theorist's point of view, this would allow 'those looking over your shoulder' to know how long your password was, and that would be of significant help for said 'would-be hackers wanting to gain access to my computer'.

[oshunluvr]

Nice to know this 'how to' about sudo. But, from a conspiracy theorist's point of view, this would allow 'those looking over your shoulder' to know how long your password was, and that would be of significant help for said 'would-be hackers wanting to gain access to my computer'.

Point taken, that's probably why it's not the default. However, I can't think of a single other place (cell phones, web pages, etc.) where you don't get feedback when typing passwords.

Besides, if you're in my office while I'm "sudo-ing" I'll be careful!

[Snowhog]

Besides, if you're in my office while I'm "sudo-ing" I'll be careful!

And you know I'm not there now how? [slithering silently in the shadows]

[GreyGeek]

Doesn't work for me.
I added "env_editor=nano" to my environment and then issued "sudo visudo". The file appeared, but not surrounded by the nano editing structure. And, when I moved to the end of the line where "pwfeedback" was to be added the cursor stayed on the "t" at the end of "env_reset" and wouldn't move any farther to the right. None of the Nano commands worked.
Adding the "w" permission do sudoers didn't help, so I removed it.
Reading "man sudoers" was Greek, and I had two years of Greek, but it didn't help.

[Snowhog]

See https://www.digitalocean.com/communi...ntu-and-centos

Scroll down to What is Visudo?

[GreyGeek]

See https://www.digitalocean.com/communi...ntu-and-centos

Scroll down to What is Visudo?

All that stuff I knew.
When I first tried "sudo sudoers" I was presented with a screen that responded only to the arrow keys but there wasn't any editing commands available or active. Even "esc" didn't work, so I closed the terminal. I added the "env_editor=nano" env setting even though Ubuntu supposedly had it set (but not visible?) in the environment. so I set it to nano. That didn't help.
It appears as if running "sudo sudoers" behaves as if I had really run "man sudoers".

[oshunluvr]

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

Then select your editor of choice.

[GreyGeek]

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

Then select your editor of choice.

I saw that in the web pages I was reading to solve this problem but didn't use it because I could edit my env parameters in ~/.bashrc and set envv_editor (and EDITOR) myself. But, I tried it anyway and .... it worked! It never dawned on me that "sudo visudo" was using the root environment and not mine.