How does Amazon ec2-user get its sudo rights

amazon ec2sudo

I am looking for where the default Amazon AMI linux image sets up the privileges for the default ec2-user account.

After logging in with this account I can use sudo successfully. Checking via the sudoers file, which I open by running visudo (with no other options) I see a few default settings and permissions for root ALL ALL

So … Where is the permissions for ec2-user assigned?

I have not yet tried to add a new permission but ultimately I want to resign ec2-user for systems management tasks and use a non-full root user for administering the applications (stop and start mysql, httpd, edit apache's vhost files, and upload / edit web content under the web root)

Best Answer

It's in /etc/sudoers.d/cloud-init. I, too, delete it from my production systems as soon as I can.

It is included by virtue of the line

#includedir /etc/sudoers.d

in the /etc/sudoers file. Note that, as it says, that leading # isn't treated as a comment sign. On some of my servers, it's also in /etc/sudoers.d/90-cloud-init-users; it may be safest to userdel the ec2-user user.

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