Originally posted by: JSOLDE

Hi,

my customer wants to install the latest version of sudo 1.8.23 (or 1.8.22) but it is only available in the sudo website (https://www.sudo.ws/), the latest version on IBM AIX toolbox is 1.8.20p2. Is there any reason why they could not use the latest sudo version 1.8.23? I mean what are the drawbacks of not using the IBM AIX toolbox one?

I made the question in the AIX forum and I was told that 'There are lot of process & effort involved in publishing new version of any package in AIX Toolbox . It mainly involves porting and getting legal approval for it. Not every package is updated frequently. It will be done on a priority basis. '

I'd like some additional clarifications if possible:

Imagine that my customer needs to install the latest version 1.8.23 from https://www.sudo.ws/ because they need some fixes that are still not in the latest version of AIX toolbox, what are the risks of doing that, both regarding the level of support that IBM will give to their AIX servers (assuming they have SWMA active) and the technical risks?  Is there any reason why they should stick to the AIX toolbox binaries?

Thanks

Jordi

Originally posted by: AyappanP

If the sudo binary available on sudo web page suits all the requirements, then very well they can use the rpm available there. 

I see the sudo there is not built with ldap support. 

Originally posted by: JSOLDE

Thanks Ayappan,

apart from the LDAP support is there any other difference between the sudo website version and the one from the AIX toolbox? I mean given the same version, for instance 1.8.20p2 what is different between both binaries?

Originally posted by: AyappanP

There are some other differences as well. Basically you need to run "sudo -V" to figure out what is supported and enabled. 

Originally posted by: JSOLDE

Thanks Ayappan ,

one concern of the customer about using the sudo from sudo website and not AIX toolbox is that it could happen that the sudo package may have in the future some dependencies that could need to impact/replace some internal AIX libraries in which case the AIX support would be probably compromised. Is this a possibility?

Originally posted by: AyappanP

Sudo is a small niche package. The probability of it replacing some AIX library is very less.

The user should check what files are provided by the rpm before installing it.

But as I said, the chances are very less in the case of sudo.