12.10, root password required for GUI admin tasks

[kevin1]

12.10 64 bit running on Toshiba Satellite C870-198 with single user account.

I understand that the Ubuntu philosophy is to have the root account disabled, the administrative user account password being
used with 'sudo' to carry out administrative tasks. I have done nothing to enable the root account, and have not set a root
password.

If I launch the Samba configuration GUI from the Dash launcher it requests the administrative password, but rejects my login
password, which is accepted by 'gksudo system-config-samba'.

Similarly my login password is rejected by another GUI tool, System Testing, which explicitly requests the root password.

Are these failures due to bugs in the distribution, or is there something wrong with my installation?

Thanks,

Kevin

[steeldriver]

Have you tried just pressing 'Enter'? I'm not familiar with system-config-samba but I know that some of the command-line samba tools (e.g. 'sudo smbtree') request both the sudo user's password and then root's - I have always just hit 'Enter' and it seems to be happy with that

[kevin1]

The Samba GUI will not run after just hitting 'Enter', but repeatedly re-presents the password request. As previously stated, the same GUI tool runs OK via 'gksudo system-config-samba', so to me it looks like a bug in the Dash launcher.

After entering the administrator password or just hitting 'Enter', System Testing does run, but keeps re-presenting the password request. It states that 'Some tests require root access to run properly', and indeed certain tests are not completed due to incorrect permission. Running the same GUI tool via 'gksudo checkbox-qt', the administrator password is accepted and all tests complete normally.

Thanks,

Kevin

[coffeecat]

This sounds as though sudo mode has been disabled for some reason. Press alt-F2 and type "gksu-properties" or you can run gksu-properties from the terminal, and check that the authentication mode is sudo and not su. The default is sudo, so if your system is showing su, something must have changed it. The samba GUI authenticates OK for me in 12.10 when opened from the dash.

[rnerwein]

The Samba GUI will not run after just hitting 'Enter', but repeatedly re-presents the password request. As previously stated, the same GUI tool runs OK via 'gksudo system-config-samba', so to me it looks like a bug in the Dash launcher.

After entering the administrator password or just hitting 'Enter', System Testing does run, but keeps re-presenting the password request. It states that 'Some tests require root access to run properly', and indeed certain tests are not completed due to incorrect permission. Running the same GUI tool via 'gksudo checkbox-qt', the administrator password is accepted and all tests complete normally.

Thanks,

Kevin

hi
why you ain't give "root" a password.
open a terminal: run -> sudo /bin/bash
run: passwd root -> and give root a password.
ciao

[kevin1]

Many thanks coffeecat.

Authentication mode was set to 'su'. I switched it to 'sudo', now everything works as it should. No idea how it came to be wrong though.

Kevin

[kevin1]

Thanks for the suggestion rnerwein, but the 'sudo' method is supposed to be safer.

Kevin

[coffeecat]

Authentication mode was set to 'su'. I switched it to 'sudo', now everything works as it should. No idea how it came to be wrong though.

I'm glad that solved it. Out of interest, was there anything unconventional about your Ubuntu installation, or did you install from the live CD or USB session? A couple of years ago there was this bug, although I don't know whether it affects recent versions of Ubuntu:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...su/+bug/685349

I experienced that bug when I did a chroot install of the base system of Ubuntu 10.10 and then installed the GUI afterwards. It was an eccentric way to install Ubuntu so it didn't worry me too much that I had the same problem, and 99% + of people installing then would probably not have seen it at all.

[kevin1]

I did have some problems installing, see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2122256.
The system is UEFI dual boot with Windows 8, with an unencrypted Ubuntu boot partition and the rest of Ubuntu in an encrypted LVM physical volume.
Due to difficulties posed by this mix I ended up installing from 'Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal Minimal CD.iso' then installed Desktop using 'sudo tasksel'.

Kevin

[coffeecat]

Due to difficulties posed by this mix I ended up installing from 'Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal Minimal CD.iso' then installed Desktop using 'sudo tasksel'.

Thanks for that information. There are certainly parallels with the earlier bug and it's worth knowing that this issue can still occur.