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Doas

Computer software

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated August 4, 2026

doas (“dedicated openbsd application subexecutor”) is a program to execute commands as another user. The system administrator can configure it to give specified users privileges to execute specified commands. It is free and open-source under the ISC license and available in Unix and Unix-like operating systems.

doas was developed by Ted Unangst for OpenBSD as a simpler and safer sudo replacement. Unangst himself had issues with the default sudo config, which was his motivation to develop doas. doas was released with OpenBSD 5.8 in October 2015 replacing sudo. However, OpenBSD still provides sudo as a package.

01Configuration

Definition of privileges should be written in the configuration file, /etc/doas.conf. The syntax used in the configuration file is inspired by the packet filter configuration file.

Examples

Allow user1 to execute procmap as root without password:

permit nopass user1 as root cmd /usr/sbin/procmap

Allow members of the wheel group to run any command as root:

permit :wheel as root

Simpler version (only works if default user is root, which it is after install):

permit :wheel

To allow members of wheel group to run any command (default as root) and remember that they entered the password:

permit persist :wheel

02Ports and availability

Jesse Smith's port of doas is packaged for DragonFlyBSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD. According to the author, it also works on illumos and macOS.

OpenDoas, a Linux port, is packaged for Debian, Alpine, Arch, CRUX, Fedora, Gentoo, GNU Guix, Hyperbola, Manjaro, Parabola, NixOS, Ubuntu, and Void Linux. Starting with Alpine Linux v3.16 release, OpenDoas became the suggested replacement for sudo, which got its security maintenance time reduced within the distribution.

Watch videos about DoasExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Doas”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.

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Related topics

Sudo

sudo is a shell command on Unix-like operating systems that enables a user to run a program with the security privileges of another user, by default the superuser. It originally stood for "superuser do", as that was all it did, and this remains its most common usage; however, the official Sudo project page lists it as "su 'do'".

Runas

In computing, runas is a command in the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems that allows a user to run specific tools and programs under a different username to the one that was used to logon to a computer interactively. It is similar to the Unix commands sudo and su, but the Unix commands generally require prior configuration by the system administrator to work for a particular user and/or command.