bug: Action fails on yum install due to sudo password requirement

The setup-python-amazon-linux action fails during the dependency installation step. Specifically, the command sudo yum install -y tar gzip which prompts for a password, causing the process to hang and eventually fail with the error: sudo: a terminal is required to read the password.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

Use kishaningithub/setup-python-amazon-linux@v1 in a workflow.
Run the workflow on a self-hosted Amazon Linux runner.
See error in the "Run sudo yum install..." step.

Error Log

Run sudo yum install -y tar gzip which
  sudo yum install -y tar gzip which
  shell: /usr/bin/bash --noprofile --norc -e -o pipefail {0}

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.

For security reasons, the password you type will not be visible.

sudo: a terminal is required to read the password; either use the -S option to read from standard input or configure an askpass helper
sudo: a password is required
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

Expected behavior:

The action should be able to install necessary dependencies (tar, gzip, which) without requiring interactive password entry, or provide a way to bypass this check if dependencies are already present.

@salmankadaya

@salmankadaya What is the version of amazon linux you are using?

Also can you check the user and check if the user is in the sudoers list?

@kishaningithub

Hello @kishaningithub, The OS version is Amazon Linux 2023.10.20260325.
I would like to check whether the user has been added to the sudoers list.
For your information, this self-hosted runner was created by the infrastructure team, and I do not have admin access to it.
Could you please advise how a user can be added to the sudoers list and which user needs to be added?

@salmankadaya

@salmankadaya Within a CI environment a sudo should never ask for a password. To verify this check if you have something like the following in /etc/sudoers or within a file under /etc/sudoers.d/

ec2-user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

It is a best practice generally to add lines like the above in a separate file inside /etc/sudoers.d/ so that it is separate from the global /etc/sudoers

Ask your infrastructure team to create a file /etc/sudoers.d/github-runner (The name can be anything) and put the above line (assuming your default user is ec2-user) then this action and anything else which requires a sudo mode should work as expected.

Have created a new PR to require sudo only if the specified command (tar,gzip,which) is not already present in the environment #32

Have created a new release https://github.com/kishaningithub/setup-python-amazon-linux/releases/tag/v1.1.1

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bug: Action fails on yum install due to sudo password requirement #31

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bug: Action fails on yum install due to sudo password requirement #31

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kishaningithub commented on May 6, 2026

kishaningithub commented on May 6, 2026

salmankadaya commented on May 7, 2026

kishaningithub commented on May 8, 2026

kishaningithub commented on May 8, 2026

kishaningithub commented on May 8, 2026

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