mjhjmtu

This issue popped up about a week ago, not sure what caused it. Previously the environment had been working as expected. Using a VM hosted on VMWare tools, uname -a returns roughly the following.

-virtual-machine 4.10.0-38-generic #42~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 10 16:32:20 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

For example, sudo su root returns

"Sorry, user linuxUser is not allowed to execute '/bin/su root' as root on linuxUser-virtual-machine."

sudo apt-get install vim

"Sorry, user linuxUser is not allowed to execute '/usr/bin/apt-get install vim' as root on linuxUser-virtual-machine".

However I can execute commands as linuxUser, like ls -la or vim.

id returns the following

uid=1000(linuxUser) gid=1000(linuxUser) groups=1000(linuxUser),999(docker)

What I've tried

1. editing sudodoers, I can't modify the file because I don't have root access


2. Changing linuxUser's password, had no effect

I've googled around pretty heavily on this, but it seems like most users are either still able to execute sudo commands or are still able to switch to root. Any ideas?

sudo -l -U linuxUser returns the following

Matching Defaults entries for linuxUser on linuxUser-virtual-machine:
env_reset, mail_badpass,
secure_path=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/snap/bin
User linuxUser may run the following commands on linuxUser-virtual-machine:
(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/checkAPT.py

POSTMORTEM EDIT: Hey All, I fixed the issue with https://askubuntu.com/questions/70442/how-do-i-add-myself-back-as-a-sudo-user. Thanks for the help!

User linuxUser may run the following commands on linuxUser-virtual-machine:
(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/checkAPT.py

Well, that rather plainly says that you're not authorized (as far as sudo is concerned) to run anything other than that script.

If you were allowed to run arbitrary commands, there would be a line in the output to that effect:

User thisuser may run the following commands on thishost:
 (ALL : ALL) ALL
 (root) NOPASSWD: /some/other/utility

That access could be given by username, or by group membership.

someuser ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL # by user
%sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL # by group

If the /etc/sudoers file has not been modified, then perhaps your membership in the sudo group has been removed (the group could have some other name, of course)?

There's no way to know, without seeing the configuration, which you can't see without sufficient access. Reinstall and restore from backups, or open the disk (image) in another system where you have enough access.

Try to mount the system disk (system disk file) to a reliable linux system where you have the root rights. Then you can investigate the passwd, group, sudoers and all other relevant files, and/or you can use chroot to enter into the failing system.

Note that Sorry, user %s is not allowed to execute '%s%s%s' as %s%s%s on %s. is a different error to %s is not in the sudoers file. (I have not read source, I just ran strings in the code in /usr/lib/sudo/*.)

Therefore you may still be in sudoers file. Someone may have reconfigured it.
Try various commands, you may find something that will help you. If not then you need to mount the disk on a different OS instance, and fix it.