Canonical has announced that the upcoming Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing Quokka) release, scheduled for early October, will be the first major Linux distribution to replace C‑based sudo implementation with sudo‑rs, a Rust‑based reimplementation developed by the Trifecta Tech Foundation.
The tool was created under TTF’s Privilege Boundary initiative, which aims to harden components handling privilege escalation by leveraging Rust’s strong compile‑time guarantees against memory‑safety vulnerabilities. As a long‑time sudo maintainer, Todd Miller has collaborated directly with the sudo‑rs team, ensuring compatibility and continuity.
If you have worries, don’t. Adopting sudo‑rs will be completely transparent for most users: configuration files, command‑line behavior, and existing workflows remain unchanged.
However, the developers have taken a “less is more” approach, choosing not to reimplement niche or outdated features. Consequently, some legacy sudo options may be omitted initially, with the team focusing on core functionality and robust security.
Of course, all of this is being done with the idea that 25.10 serves as a testing ground before the changes roll out to the 26.04 LTS release, where there’s no room for experimentation and everything needs to work perfectly. After all, Ubuntu LTS releases are a big deal, not just for Canonical but for the entire Linux ecosystem.
If you’re wondering whether the regular sudo tool will still be around, yes. And not just in the 25.10 and 26.04 LTS releases, but likely in a few releases after that as well. Jon Seager, a technical leader and software engineer working for Canonical as VP Engineering, said:
The original sudo package will still be available in 26.04 (and probably a few releases after) and you’ll be able to choose which you use with the alternatives system. This will all be documented with the release.
Lastly, as we informed you in mid-March, replacing an Essential package like coreutils with its Rust alternatives is also on the list. Regarding this, Ubuntu’s plan involves new metapackages—coreutils-from-uutils, coreutils-from-gnu, and a wrapper coreutils-from—that enable a seamless switch, or, if desired, an easy rollback to GNU coreutils.
For sudo‑rs, the transition is more straightforward: since sudo is not flagged as Essential, the Debian alternatives system can handle the switch between implementations without disrupting the base installation.
For more information, see the announcement.
Just a quick heads-up: Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing Quokka) already has daily builds available for those eager to try it out early. You can grab the ISO files here.
