Google Cloud VM when sudoing asks for password

Question

I've been working with a Google Cloud debian VM and had no problem at all doing super user tasks using sudo (sudo was not asking for password).

Today I connected via SSH as usual and when I try to sudo something it started asking for password:

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.
    #2) Think before you type.
    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

[sudo] password for -----:

According to the documentation it should not ask for password as is already SSL Key authenticated connection.

Answer 1

Today I had the same problem with CentOS 8.x VM. After some testing I found a more simple solution. The group "google-sudoers" is allowed to sudo in /etc/sudoers.d/google_sudoers file, so, to fix the problem and make it permanent add your user to "google-sudoers" group with the next steps:

1. SSH to your VM from GCP's web console
2. Run sudo usermod -a -G google-sudoers USER to add your USER to google-sudoers group
3. Close your current SSH session and open a new one
4. Test that everything works ok

You should be able to run sudo commands or gain root again.

Answer 2

To avoid this, one solution is open the ssh terminal on the web browser from GCP console. You can give a try on this. This is because of SSH key related configuration on Google Clound Engine