This tutorial is taken from the original homepage:
Sudo in a Nutshell
Sudo (su "do") allows a system administrator to give certain users (or groups of users) the ability to run some (or all) commands as root while logging all commands and arguments. Sudo operates on a per-command basis, it is not a replacement for the shell. Its features include:
- The ability to restrict what commands a user may run on a per-host basis.
- Sudo does copious logging of each command, providing a clear audit trail of who did what. When used in tandem with syslogd, the system log daemon, sudo can log all commands to a central host (as well as on the local host). At CU, all admins use sudo in lieu of a root shell to take advantage of this logging.
- Sudo uses timestamp files to implement a "ticketing" system. When a user invokes sudo and enters their password, they are granted a ticket for 5 minutes (this timeout is configurable at compile-time). Each subsequent sudo command updates the ticket for another 5 minutes. This avoids the problem of leaving a root shell where others can physically get to your keyboard. There is also an easy way for a user to remove their ticket file, useful for placing in a .logout file.
- Sudo's configuration file, the sudoers file, is setup in such a way that the same sudoers file may be used on many machines. This allows for central administration while keeping the flexibility to define a user's privileges on a per-host basis. Please see the samples sudoers file below for a real-world example.
Root
UNIX root account is all or nothing.
In computing, the superuser is a special user account used for system administration. Depending on the operating system (OS), the actual name of this account might be root, administrator, admin or supervisor. In some cases, the actual name of the account is not the determining factor; on Unix-like systems, for example, the user with a user identifier (UID) of zero is the superuser, regardless of the name of that account and in systems which implement a role based security model, any user with the role of superuser (or its synonyms) can carry out all actions of the superuser account. The principle of least privilege recommends that most users and applications run under an ordinary account to perform their work, as a superuser account is capable of making unrestricted, potentially adverse, system-wide changes.(a)
(a) from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superuser