doas - Man Page
execute commands as another user
Examples (TL;DR)
Run a command as root:
doas command
Run a command as another user:
doas -u user command
Launch the default shell as root:
doas -s
Parse a configuration file and check if the execution of a command as another user is allowed:
doas -C config_file command
Make
doas
request a password even after it was supplied earlier:doas -L
Synopsis
Description
The doas utility executes the given command as another user. The command argument is mandatory unless -C, -L, or -s is specified.
The user will be required to authenticate by entering their password, unless configured otherwise.
By default, a new environment is created. The variables HOME
, LOGNAME
, PATH
, SHELL
, and USER
and the umask(2) are set to values appropriate for the target user. DOAS_USER
is set to the name of the user executing doas. The variables DISPLAY
and TERM
are inherited from the current environment. This behavior may be modified by the config file. The working directory is not changed.
The options are as follows:
- -C config
Parse and check the configuration file config, then exit. If command is supplied, doas will also perform command matching. In the latter case either ‘permit’, ‘permit nopass’ or ‘deny’ will be printed on standard output, depending on command matching results. No command is executed.
- -L
Clear any persisted authentications from previous invocations, then immediately exit. No command is executed.
- -n
Non interactive mode, fail if the matching rule doesn't have the
nopass
option.- -s
Execute the shell from
SHELL
or/etc/passwd
.- -u user
Execute the command as user. The default is root.
Exit Status
The doas utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. It may fail for one of the following reasons:
The config file
/etc/doas.conf
could not be parsed.The user attempted to run a command which is not permitted.
The password was incorrect.
The specified command was not found or is not executable.
See Also
History
The doas command first appeared in OpenBSD 5.8.
Authors
Ted Unangst <tedu@openbsd.org>
Referenced By
chicken-install(1), configuration.nix(5), doas.conf(5), lxqt-sudo(1).