Sudo and its alternatives [LWN.net]

Did you know...?LWN.net is a subscriber-supported publication; we rely on subscribers to keep the entire operation going. Please help out by buying a subscription and keeping LWN on the net. Sudo is a ubiquitous tool for running commands with the privileges of another user on Unix-like operating systems. Over the past decade or so, some alternatives have been developed; the base system of OpenBSD