[Bug 32906] Re: sudo fails if it cannot resolve the local hostname and no MTA is installed

[Steve Langasek]

No, that's not this bug.  This bug is about sudo *failing* if it can't
resolve the hostname, which is not what you have happening.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/32906

Title:
  sudo fails if it cannot resolve the local hostname and no MTA is
  installed

Status in sudo:
  Fix Released
Status in “sudo” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “sudo” source package in Hardy:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  On behalf of Adam Williamson [*]

  adamw at ubuntu510:~$ sudo scp 192.168.2.7:/etc/hosts /etc

  adamw at ubuntu510:~$ sudo nano /etc/hosts

  sudo: unable to lookup ubuntu510 via gethostbyname()

  …yeah, sudo, it’s all very clever until someone loses an eye!

  I have a bunch of entries in /etc/hosts because of having four local
  systems plus a bunch of VMware machines etc. So now when I set up a
  new VMware machine I just copy the /etc/hosts from the real machine
  over to the VM then edit a couple of lines to match the VM, instead of
  re-editing it all from scratch. Only, as you can see, this utterly
  breaks Ubuntu…all I need to do to fix the sudo problem is edit
  /etc/hosts so 127.0.0.1 is ‘ubuntu510′ (the name of the VM) rather
  than ‘zen’ (the name of the real machine), but I can’t do it, because
  sudo doesn’t work…

  the only way out of this that I can see is single-user mode or the
  recovery console. Not too smart! Surely sudo shouldn’t ABSOLUTELY NEED
  to look up the host it’s running on?

  
  [*] Originally from http://www.happyassassin.net/2006/02/24/how-to-break-ubuntu-in-thirty-seconds/, 

  If you consider that this is relevant and worth discussing, we can add
  Adam Williamson to the conversation. Otherwise, just mark it as
  invalid and forget it.

  TEST CASE:
   - This only works (i. e. fails) on a system where /usr/sbin/sendmail does NOT exist (standard Ubuntu installation)
   - open a terminal and do "sudo -i" to get a root shell; do "hostname foo"
   - open another terminal, and try "sudo ls". Hardy final will fail with "unable to resolve host foo" and not run the ls.
   - upgrade sudo to the hardy-proposed version and attempt the same. sudo should still complain, but run the ls command.

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