super user do (officially pronounced /ˈsuːduː/, though /ˈsuːdoʊ/ is also common) is a program for Unix-like computer operating systems that allows users to run programs securely with the security privileges of another user (normally the superuser). By default, sudo will prompt for a user password but it may be configured to not require a password. The sudo command provides logging for individual commands run and some cases it has completely supplanted the root logon for administrative tasks, most notably in Ubuntu Linux and Apple's Mac OS X.
sudo was originally written by Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer around 1980 at the Department of Computer Science at SUNY/Buffalo. The current version is maintained by OpenBSD developer Todd C Miller and distributed under a BSD-style license.
