Thanks for the responses. I think this is what I want to do. I commented out #Defaults requiretty in /etc/sudo. But what I really wanted to do was just place it in VPNUSERS: %vpnusers ALL=NOPASSWD: /sbin/service myciscovpn start, \ /sbin/service myciscovpn stop, \ /sbin/service myciscovpn status, \ /usr/bin/mycisco, /usr/local/bin/vpnclient visudo took it but it did not work. Actually if I could just put it in user tony that would be best: tony ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL !requiretty But that gives a syntax error. What is the correct way to specify it? -----Original Message----- > Well, I noticed that ssh/scp probably requires tty and when called > from a script, its not from a tty. > > At least in my case which was drupal calling a script that lauched > ssh, a non tty source. > > I also required running privileged commands. > > Mebbe you don't need all this so check your logs and see what happens. > My last job, I was setting up rsync backups. What I did was create a user, backup, then in /etc/sudoers, have !requiretty *only* for that user. The user was also limited in what commands it could run (in that case, rsync only). Don't forget to log in as that user first, so that you don't get the "Oh, This is a new IP, are you Sure you want to continue connecting?!?!" mark