How to set a message for the sudo login prompt

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Sudo

Issue

We would like to modify the default message a user receives for the password prompt when trying to use sudo:

 # sudo su -
With great power comes great responsibility.
Please enter your password:

Resolution

To set a default prompt message, add an entry like the following example to the /etc/sudoers file.

 # visudo
 Defaults passprompt="With great power comes great responsibility.
Please enter your password:  "

Root Cause

Sudo has a preset default password prompt, which can be edited.

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