[linux] How to fix 'sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified' error?

I am trying to compile some sources using a makefile. In the makefile there is a bunch of commands that need to be ran as sudo.

When I compile the sources from a terminal all goes fine and the make is paused the first time a sudo command is ran waiting for password. Once I type in the password, make resumes and completes.

But I would like to be able to compile the sources in NetBeans. So, I started a project and showed netbeans where to find the sources, but when I compile the project it gives the error:

sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified

The first time it hits a sudo command.

I have looked up the issue on the internet and all the solutions I found point to one thing: disabling the password for this user. Since the user in question here is root. I do not want to do that.

Is there any other solution?

After all alternatives, I found:

sudo -S <cmd>

The -S (stdin) option causes sudo to read the password from the standard input instead of the terminal device.

Source

Above command still needs password to be entered. To remove entering password manually, in cases like jenkins, this command works:

echo <password> | sudo -S <cmd> 

For the reference, in case someone else encounter the same issue, I was stuck during a good hour with this error which should not happen since I was using the NOPASSWD parameter.

What I did NOT know was that sudo may raise the exact same error message when there is no tty and the command the user try to launch is not part of the allowed command in the /etc/sudoers file.

Here a simplified example of my file content with my issue:

bguser ALL = NOPASSWD: \
    command_a arg_a, \
    command_b arg_b \
    command_c arg_c

When bguser will try to launch "sudo command_b arg_b" without any tty (bguser being used for some daemon), then he will encounter the error "no tty present and no askpass program specified".

Why?

Because a comma is missing at the end of line in the /etc/sudoers file...

(I even wonder if this is an expected behavior and not a bug in sudo since the correct error message for such case shoud be "Sorry, user bguser is not allowed to execute etc.")

I faced this issue when working on an Ubuntu 20.04 server.

I was trying to run a sudo command from a remote machine to deploy an app to the server. However when I run the command I get the error:

sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified
The remote script failed with exit code 1

Here's how I fixed it:

The issue is caused by executing a sudo command which tries to request for a password, but sudo does not have access to a tty to prompt the user for a passphrase. As it can’t find a tty, sudo falls back to an askpass method but can’t find an askpass command configured, so the sudo command fails.

To fix this you need to be able to run sudo for that specific user with no password requirements. The no password requirements is configured in the /etc/sudoers file. To configure it run either of the commands below:

sudo nano /etc/sudoers

OR

sudo visudo

Note: This opens the /etc/sudoers file using your default editor.

Next, Add the following line at the bottom of the file:

# Allow my_user to run all commands without password
my_user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

Note: Replace my_user with your actual user

If you want the user to run specific commands you can specify them

# Allow my_user to run specific commands without password
my_user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:/bin/myCommand

OR

# Allow my_user to run specific commands without password
my_user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /bin/myCommand, /bin/myCommand, /bin/myCommand

Save the changes and exit the file.

For more help, read the resource in this link: sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified

That's all.

I hope this helps

Command sudo fails as it is trying to prompt on root password and there is no pseudo-tty allocated (as it's part of the script).

You need to either log-in as root to run this command or set-up the following rules in your /etc/sudoers (or: sudo visudo):

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges.
%admin  ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

Then make sure that your user belongs to admin group (or wheel).

Ideally (safer) it would be to limit root privileges only to specific commands which can be specified as %admin ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:/path/to/program

Try:

ssh -t remotehost "sudo <cmd>"

This will remove the above errors.

In Jenkins:

echo '<your-password>' | sudo -S command

Eg:-

echo '******' | sudo -S service nginx restart

You can use Mask Password Plugin to hide your password

No one told what could cause this error, in case of migration from one host to another, remember about checking hostname in sudoers file:

So this is my /etc/sudoers config

User_Alias      POWERUSER = user_name
Cmnd_Alias SKILL = /root/bin/sudo_auth_wrapper.sh
POWERUSER hostname=(root:root) NOPASSWD: SKILL

if it doesn't match

uname -a
Linux other_hostname 3.10.17 #1 SMP Wed Oct 23 16:28:33 CDT 2013 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4130T CPU @ 2.90GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

it will pop up this error:

no tty present and no askpass program specified

Running shell scripts that have contain sudo commands in them from jenkins might not run as expected. To fix this, follow along

Simple steps:

1. On ubuntu based systems, run " $ sudo visudo "

2. this will open /etc/sudoers file.

3. If your jenkins user is already in that file, then modify to look like this:

jenkins ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

4. save the file

5. Relaunch your jenkins job

6. you shouldnt see that error message again :)

Maybe the question is unclear that why no answer was matching it but I had the same error message when I was trying to mount sshfs which required sudo : the command is something like this :

sshfs -o sftp_server="/usr/bin/sudo /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server" [email protected]:/var/www /mnt/sshfs/www

by adding the option -o debug

sshfs -o debug -o sftp_server="/usr/bin/sudo /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server" [email protected]:/var/www /mnt/sshfs/www

I had the same message of this question :

sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified

So by reading others answer I became to make a file in /etc/sudoer.d/user on my.server.tld with :

user ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server

and now I able to mount the drive without giving too much extra right to my user.

This error may also arise when you are trying to run a terminal command (that requires root password) from some non-shell script, eg sudo ls (in backticks) from a Ruby program. In this case, you can use Expect utility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expect) or its alternatives.
For example, in Ruby to execute sudo ls without getting sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified, you can run this:

require 'ruby_expect'

exp = RubyExpect::Expect.spawn('sudo ls', :debug => true)
exp.procedure do
    each do
        expect "[sudo] password for _your_username_:" do
            send _your_password_
        end
    end
end

[this uses one of the alternatives to Expect TCL extension: ruby_expect gem].

sudo by default will read the password from the attached terminal. Your problem is that there is no terminal attached when it is run from the netbeans console. So you have to use an alternative way to enter the password: that is called the askpass program.

The askpass program is not a particular program, but any program that can ask for a password. For example in my system x11-ssh-askpass works fine.

In order to do that you have to specify what program to use, either with the environment variable SUDO_ASKPASS or in the sudo.conf file (see man sudo for details).

You can force sudo to use the askpass program by using the option -A. By default it will use it only if there is not an attached terminal.

Although this question is old, it is still relevant for my more or less up-to-date system. After enabling debug mode of sudo (Debug sudo /var/log/sudo_debug all@info in /etc/sudo.conf) I was pointed to /dev: "/dev is world writable". So you might need to check the tty file permissions, especially those of the directory where the tty/pts node resides in.

For Ubuntu 16.04 users

There is a file you have to read with:

cat /etc/sudoers.d/README

Placing a file with mode 0440 in /etc/sudoers.d/myuser with following content:

myuser  ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Should fix the issue.

Do not forget to:

chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/myuser

I was able to get this done but please make sure to follow the steps properly. This is for the anyone who is getting import errors.

Step1: Check if files and folders have got execute permission issue. Linux user use:

chmod 777 filename

Step2: Check which user has the permission to execute it.

Step3: open terminal type this command.

sudo visudo

add this lines to the code below

www-data ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
nobody ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:/ALL

this is to grant permission to execute the script and allow it to use all the libraries. The user generally is 'nobody' or 'www-data'.

now edit your code as

echo shell_exec('sudo -u the_user_of_the_file python your_file_name.py 2>&1');

go to terminal to check if the process is running type this there...

ps aux | grep python

this will output all the process running in python.

Add Ons: use the below code to check the users in your system

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

Thank You!

If by any chance you came here because you can't sudo inside the Ubuntu that comes with Windows10

1. Edit the /etc/hosts file from Windows (with Notepad), it'll be located at: %localappdata\lxss\rootfs\etc, add 127.0.0.1 WINDOWS8, this will get rid of the first error that it can't find the host.

2. To get rid of the no tty present error, always do sudo -S <command>

If you add this line to your /etc/sudoers (via visudo) it will fix this problem without having to disable entering your password and when an alias for sudo -S won't work (scripts calling sudo):

Defaults visiblepw

Of course read the manual yourself to understand it, but I think for my use case of running in an LXD container via lxc exec instance -- /bin/bash its pretty safe since it isn't printing the password over a network.

Granting the user to use that command without prompting for password should resolve the problem. First open a shell console and type:

sudo visudo

Then edit that file to add to the very end:

username ALL = NOPASSWD: /fullpath/to/command, /fullpath/to/othercommand

eg

john ALL = NOPASSWD: /sbin/poweroff, /sbin/start, /sbin/stop

will allow user john to sudo poweroff, start and stop without being prompted for password.

Look at the bottom of the screen for the keystrokes you need to use in visudo - this is not vi by the way - and exit without saving at the first sign of any problem. Health warning: corrupting this file will have serious consequences, edit with care!

I was getting this error because I had limited my user to only a single executable 'systemctl' and had misconfigured the visudo file.

Here's what I had:

jenkins ALL=NOPASSWD: systemctl

However, you need to include the full path to the executable, even if it is on your path by default, for example:

jenkins ALL=NOPASSWD: /bin/systemctl

This allows my jenkins user to restart services but not have full root access

1 open /etc/sudoers

type sudo vi /etc/sudoers. This will open your file in edit mode.

2 Add/Modify linux user

Look for the entry for Linux user. Modify as below if found or add a new line.

<USERNAME> ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

3 Save and Exit from edit mode

Login into your linux. Fire following commands. Be careful, as editing sudoer is a risky proposition.

$ sudo visudo

Once vi editor opens make the following changes:

1. Comment out Defaults requiretty

   # Defaults    requiretty
   

2. Go to the end of the file and add

   jenkins ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
   

Using pipeline:

echo your_pswd | sudo -S your_cmd

Using here-document:

sudo -S cmd <<eof
pwd
eof
#remember to put the above two lines without "any" indentations.

Open a terminal to ask password (whichever works):

gnome-terminal -e "sudo cmd"

xterm -e "sudo cmd"

Other options, not based on NOPASSWD:

• Start Netbeans with root privilege ((sudo netbeans) or similar) which will presumably fork the build process with root and thus sudo will automatically succeed.
• Make the operations you need to do suexec -- make them owned by root, and set mode to 4755. (This will of course let any user on the machine run them.) That way, they don't need sudo at all.
• Creating virtual hard disk files with bootsectors shouldn't need sudo at all. Files are just files, and bootsectors are just data. Even the virtual machine shouldn't necessarily need root, unless you do advanced device forwarding.

Make sure the command you're sudoing is part of your PATH.

If you have a single (or multi, but not ALL) command sudoers entry, you'll get the sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified when the command is not part of your path (and the full path is not specified).

You can fix it by either adding the command to your PATH or invoking it with an absolute path, i.e.

sudo /usr/sbin/ipset

Instead of

sudo ipset

Try this one:

echo '' | sudo -S my_command

This worked for me:

echo "myuser ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" >> /etc/sudoers

where your user is "myuser"

for a Docker image, that would just be:

RUN echo "myuser ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" >> /etc/sudoers

I think I can help someone with my case.

First, I changed the user setting in /etc/sudoers referring to above answer. But It still didn't work.

myuser   ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
%mygroup  ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

In my case, myuser was in the mygroup.

And I didn't need groups. So, deleted that line.

(Shouldn't delete that line like me, just marking the comment.)

myuser   ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

It works!

Try:

1. Use NOPASSWD line for all commands, I mean:

   jenkins ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
   

2. Put the line after all other lines in the sudoers file.

That worked for me (Ubuntu 14.04).