sudo
There are two commands that can be used to run commands as other users: sudo and su.
The primary difference between these two is that sudo is highly configurable on which user and which commands whereas su provides blanket access.
Additionally, su requires the password of the user that is being switched to whereas sudo (normally) requires the password of the user running the command, so is more friendly.
If using these commands for root access, it is alwalys recommended to use sudo over su.
The only time it is recommended to instead use su is to login (with a shell session rather than one command) to the account of another non-root user for whom you have access/know the password.
sudoers Config file
sudo is very configurable. The config file is /etc/sudoers, however it should only ever be edited with sudo visudo to perform syntax checks before saving.
Additionally, the majority of configurations should not change the default /etc/sudoers file, but rather add additional permitted behaviour by adding new files to /etc/sudoers.d.
Write these files with sudoedit, but check them with sudo visudo --check.
The primary syntax is the following:
User OnHost = (Runas-User:Group) <space> Commands
By default, if a command is given only as a binary, any arguemnts can be provided. Specific arguments can be specified to restrict this behaviour.
There are other, use-case-specific, behaviours that can be used, but a common one is to not require a password when running certain sudo commands.
This is achieved with the NOPASSWD: directive that is prepended before the command.