Unlike the similar command su, users must, by default, supply their own password for authentication, rather than the password of the target user. Although the latter case reflects its current functionality more accurately, sudo is still often called 'superuser do' since it is so often used for administrative tasks. However, the later versions added support for running commands not only as the superuser but also as other (restricted) users, and thus it is also commonly expanded as 'substitute user do'. It originally stood for 'superuser do' as the older versions of sudo were designed to run commands only as the superuser.
Sudo ( / s uː d uː/ or / ˈ s uː d oʊ/ ) is a program for Unix-like computer operating systems that allows users to run programs with the security privileges of another user, by default the superuser.
