The version of sudo that ships with Debian by default resets the environment, as described by the "env_reset" flag in the sudoers file. This implies that all environment variables are removed, except for LOGNAME, PATH, SHELL, TERM, DISPLAY, XAUTHORITY, XAUTHORIZATION, XAPPLRESDIR, XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, LANG, LANGUAGE, LC_*, and USER. In case you want sudo to preserve more environment variables, you must specify the env_keep variable in the sudoers file. You should edit the sudoers file using the visudo tool. Examples: Preserve the default variables plus the EDITOR variable: Defaults env_keep+="EDITOR" Preserve the default variables plus all variables starting with LC_: Defaults env_keep+="LC_*" - - - - - If you're using the sudo-ldap package, note that it is now configured to look for /etc/sudo-ldap.conf. Depending on your system configuration, it probably makes sense for this to be a symlink to /etc/ldap.conf, or perhaps to /etc/libnss-ldap.conf or /etc/pam_ldap.conf. By default, no symlink or file is provided, you'll need to decide what to do and create a suitable file before sudo-ldap will work. - - - - - As of version 1.7, sudo-ldap now requires the LDAP source to be specified in /etc/nsswitch.conf with a line like: sudoers: ldap - - - - - Note that the support for the sss provider (libsss_sudo.so) that allows sudo to use SSSD as a cache for policies stored in LDAP is included in the sudo package, not in the sudo-ldap package. I have some hope that this turns out to be a better overall solution for using sudo with LDAP, as the sudo-ldap package is difficult to maintain and I'd love to be able to eliminate it! - - - - - See the file OPTIONS in this directory for more information on the sudo build options used in building the Debian package. - - - - - If you're having trouble grasping the fundamental idea of what sudo is all about, here's a succinct and humorous take on it... http://www.xkcd.com/c149.html