Werk #17905: Linux agent: Missing output when sudo not installed

Component

Checks & agents

Title

Linux agent: Missing output when sudo not installed

Date

May 13, 2025

Level

Trivial Change

Class

Bug Fix

Compatibility

Compatible - no manual interaction needed

Checkmk versions & editions

2.5.0b1 Not yet released	Checkmk Raw (CRE), Checkmk Enterprise (CEE), Checkmk Cloud (CCE), Checkmk MSP (CME)
2.4.0p2	Checkmk Raw (CRE), Checkmk Enterprise (CEE), Checkmk Cloud (CCE), Checkmk MSP (CME)

This Werk fixes a regression that occurs since Checkmk 2.4.0 and Werk #17901.

With the introduction of the non-root agent, we replaced all su calls with equivalent sudo calls in the Linux agent.
We did this to enable a non-root agent user to be able to run these commands (when permitted).

However, since sudo is not available on every system, this lead to missing agent output because the respective commands did fail.

We now fall back to the usage of su whenever sudo is not available.

Note: We recommend to have sudo installed, though. We recently observed that the usage of su in the Linux agent may lead to systemd user sessions starting that may have a performance impact.

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