control armbian-common: move sudo to Depends; armbian-firstlogin assumes sudo

[tabrisnet]

another boring change that does exactly what the commit claims.
armbian-firstlogin wants to add the first user to the sudo group.

[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

This change modifies the debian/control file to reclassify the sudo package for the armbian-common package. The sudo dependency is moved from the Recommends field to the Depends field, making it a mandatory installation requirement rather than an optional recommendation during package installation.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 1 (Trivial) | ⏱️ ~3 minutes

• Single file modification with a straightforward dependency reclassification
• No logic changes or structural alterations involved
• Homogeneous, focused edit

Suggested labels

02, Needs review

Suggested reviewers

• leggewie

Pre-merge checks and finishing touches

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately describes the main change: moving sudo from Recommends to Depends in the armbian-common control file, and explains the motivation (armbian-firstlogin assumes sudo).
Description check	✅ Passed	The description is related to the changeset, explaining that armbian-firstlogin needs sudo to add the first user to the sudo group, which justifies the dependency change.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

✨ Finishing touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Post copyable unit tests in a comment

---

📜 Recent review details

Configuration used: CodeRabbit UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Disabled knowledge base sources:

• Jira integration is disabled by default for public repositories

You can enable these sources in your CodeRabbit configuration.

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between d1e4a5d and 582bf5d.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• debian/control (1 hunks)

🧰 Additional context used

🧠 Learnings (2)

📓 Common learnings

Learnt from: tabrisnet
Repo: armbian/apa PR: 25
File: debian/control:23-23
Timestamp: 2025-12-06T21:01:15.488Z
Learning: In the armbian/apa repository's debian/control, iputils-ping is temporarily added to armbian-common's Depends as a workaround for a capability issue where /bin/ping cannot create raw sockets. The proper solution involves: (1) PR #27, (2) removing the chmod u+s workaround code from armbian/build (armbian/build#9033), and (3) adding libcap2-bin to armbian/build's debootstrap package list so that iputils-ping's postinst script can use setcap to properly configure /bin/ping. Once these pieces are complete and merged, iputils-ping should be removed from armbian-common's Depends as it will no longer be needed.

📚 Learning: 2025-12-06T21:01:15.488Z

Learnt from: tabrisnet
Repo: armbian/apa PR: 25
File: debian/control:23-23
Timestamp: 2025-12-06T21:01:15.488Z
Learning: In the armbian/apa repository's debian/control, iputils-ping is temporarily added to armbian-common's Depends as a workaround for a capability issue where /bin/ping cannot create raw sockets. The proper solution involves: (1) PR #27, (2) removing the chmod u+s workaround code from armbian/build (armbian/build#9033), and (3) adding libcap2-bin to armbian/build's debootstrap package list so that iputils-ping's postinst script can use setcap to properly configure /bin/ping. Once these pieces are complete and merged, iputils-ping should be removed from armbian-common's Depends as it will no longer be needed.

Applied to files:

• debian/control

🔇 Additional comments (1)

debian/control (1)

19-36: Making sudo a hard dependency of an Essential package changes base-system semantics

Adding sudo to armbian-common’s Depends (with armbian-common marked Essential: yes) will effectively make sudo part of the base system on all Armbian installs and not easily removable via normal APT operations. This is consistent with the goal of guaranteeing sudo for armbian-firstlogin, but it is a real behavior change for users who previously chose to omit/remove sudo or use alternatives.

If that trade-off is intentional for Armbian (i.e., “Armbian systems always ship with sudo”), then this change looks correct and aligns with how armbian-common is already being used as the “must-have” base dependency bundle. Otherwise, the alternative would be to make armbian-firstlogin gracefully handle the absence of sudo instead of tightening the dependency here.

Please confirm that making sudo effectively mandatory on all images is desired policy.

Based on learnings, armbian-common Depends is already used for base-level must-haves (e.g., the temporary iputils-ping workaround), so this is consistent with that approach.

---

Thanks for using CodeRabbit! It's free for OSS, and your support helps us grow. If you like it, consider giving us a shout-out.

❤️ Share

• X
• Mastodon
• Reddit
• LinkedIn

_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands and usage tips.}

[tabrisnet]

this may not be necessary, armbian-config depends on sudo

[leggewie]

this may not be necessary, armbian-config depends on sudo

that's correct, but the correct thing to do would be for whatever package ships armbian-firstlogin (currently unpackaged) to depend on sudo. and indeed, I would say, sudo is a very important program to have installed certainly on Ubuntu. FWIW, ubuntu-minial explicitly depends on it.

[igorpecovnik]

whatever package ships armbian-firstlogin (currently unpackaged)

all those scripts are inside bsp package.
https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/lib/functions/bsp/armbian-bsp-cli-deb.sh#L127

https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/lib/functions/bsp/armbian-bsp-cli-deb.sh#L80-L88

[tabrisnet]

So this is, as with parted/fdisk [I believe #33, I'm writing this from my phone], is another case of armbian-bsp-cli which is a pkg that must be installed not in the rootfs but the image. But sudo should be cached. It's not critical but it is reasonable. I'm sure more could be done in Armbian/build. The bsp package could be split. packages/bsp has a lot of stuff that isn't board-specific. otoh should we be signing up for such a process [right now] merely in the name of clean/DRY dependencies?

[igorpecovnik]

packages/bsp has a lot of stuff that isn't board-specific.

Indeed. We never had "armbian-generic", so those common things were simply packed to bsp. Yes, it can be split up.

should we be signing up for such a process [right now] merely in the name of clean/DRY dependencies?

Good question. Is "now" right time?

Should this stay here:
https://github.com/armbian/build/tree/main/packages/bsp/common
or we find a new place?

[leggewie]

I think that sudo is important enough in day-to-day use that we as armbian do not support installations that do not have it.

You remove sudo from your system at runtime, it's no longer an armbian-system. That's what Ubuntu essentially says in their ubuntu-minimal.