International Journal of Science, Engineering and TechnologyAuthors: Sevda Guliyeva, Kamran Mammadli, Nigar Aliyeva, Ilkin Rzayev
Abstract: In highly regulated federal IT environments ranging from civilian agencies to intelligence and defense systems the principle of least privilege is paramount. sudo (superuser do), a widely adopted command-line tool in UNIX and Linux systems, provides fine-grained privilege delegation while maintaining detailed audit trails. This review explores the strategic use of sudo for role-based access control (RBAC) within federal infrastructures, focusing on operational security, compliance, and centralized policy governance. Given the prevalence of cybersecurity mandates like FISMA, NIST 800-53, and FedRAMP, federal agencies must enforce and demonstrate tight control over privileged operations. The article begins by outlining the architectural workflow of sudo, including the parsing of sudoers policy files, integration with PAM for authentication control, and support for session-specific environment sanitization. It then delves into role design best practices, highlighting how improper use of wildcard rules or unrestricted shell access can undermine compliance efforts. Special emphasis is placed on centralizing sudo policies using LDAP and SSSD, which allows organizations to manage privilege delegation at scale while aligning with directory-based identity management. Beyond configuration, the article discusses advanced logging and auditing mechanisms, including the use of sudo_logsrvd, session recording, and real-time integration with SIEM systems like Splunk. It also explores plugin-based extensibility to enforce approval workflows or security labeling through SELinux. A case study within a civilian federal agency demonstrates the real-world benefits of LDAP-based sudo delegation, resulting in reduced root usage and improved auditability. As federal infrastructures evolve toward Zero Trust models and containerized architectures, the review concludes with recommendations for extending sudo capabilities using policy-as-code, real-time analytics, and container-aware enforcement. In doing so, it frames sudo not merely as a local elevation tool but as a central pillar of modern, secure role management.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15852796
