Administrative Password in Ubuntu 9.10 ??

[latimerio]

Many system settings require root privileges.
Gnome GUIs then pop up a dialog box asking for the administrative password.
But Ubuntu has no root password by default (which I think is a good idea)

I have activated my account in /etc/sudoers and I am also member of the admin group.
latimer ALL = (ALL) ALL
admin:x:115:latimer
On the command line I can sudo to do my tasks but if for example I go to
System -> Administration -> Bootup-Manager I can not authenticate with my password.
I googled around to find a solution but without success.
Am I missing something important here?

[akakingess]

Many system settings require root privileges.
Gnome GUIs then pop up a dialog box asking for the administrative password.
But Ubuntu has no root password by default (which I think is a good idea)

I have activated my account in /etc/sudoers and I am also member of the admin group.
latimer ALL = (ALL) ALL
admin:115:latimer
On the command line I can sudo to do my tasks but if for example I go to
System -> Administration -> Bootup-Manager I can not authenticate with my password.
I googled around to find a solution but without success.
Am I missing something important here?

First of all, I am not sure what you mean by "Boot-up Manager" so maybe that's why I am confused, but could you let us know of some more (if there are any) situations in which your password will not Authenticate? Also, although I am 99.9% sure it has nothing to do with it, your user is part of the "root" group as well, correct?

[latimerio]

First of all, I am not sure what you mean by "Boot-up Manager"

In Karmic Koala there is a menu entry as I stated
System -> Administration -> Bootup-Manager
The tooltip says: graphical runleve configuration tool
alacarte gives the command line: su-to-root -X -c bum

And yes I am in the root group too.
I have not tested all other items but some do work when I enter my password others just come back with the authentication dialog.
E.g. Synaptic Package Manager does not work
whereas Time And Date does work

BTW. The authentication dialog says "Enter the administrative password" which is confusing because there is no root password. It should better say just "enter your password" .
It would be desireable if there was a help button on each and every dialog that asks for authentication which then explains what must be done to get the authentication working.

[lisati]

BTW. The authentication dialog says "Enter the administrative password" which is confusing because there is no root password. It should better say just "enter your password" .
It would be desireable if there was a help button on each and every dialog that asks for authentication which then explains what must be done to get the authentication working.

Isn't it possible in Karmic to set up users that don't have admin privileges?

[akakingess]

In Karmic Koala there is a menu entry as I stated
System -> Administration -> Bootup-Manager
The tooltip says: graphical runleve configuration tool
alacarte gives the command line: su-to-root -X -c bum

And yes I am in the root group too.
I have not tested all other items but some do work when I enter my password others just come back with the authentication dialog.
E.g. Synaptic Package Manager does not work
whereas Time And Date does work

BTW. The authentication dialog says "Enter the administrative password" which is confusing because there is no root password. It should better say just "enter your password" .
It would be desireable if there was a help button on each and every dialog that asks for authentication which then explains what must be done to get the authentication working.

I'm on Karmic 9.10, maybe that was something that you added or maybe you are using KDE instead of Gnome? Either way, it's hard to narrow down what's causing the problem or difference (depending on how you look at it) without knowing which ones work and which ones don't. If you are using Gnome, under the Applications menu, do you have the "Ubuntu Software Center" at the bottom of that menu, and if so, does it allow you to enter with your password? If it does, than that would be very odd, as it is the same as Synaptic Package Manager. I'll sit back and see if someone else can chime in with some more information, because I haven't seen or heard of this issue, and maybe you are using Kubuntu, I just don't know. I will try to help if I think I would be of assistance. Good luck, and if you could answer some of my questions maybe that would help me sort it out a little bit.

[akakingess]

Isn't it possible in Karmic to set up users that don't have admin privileges?

Yes, that's why I didn't even address that issue, sorry, if my kids were on this machine and attempted to do something that required authentication, then entering their passwords would do nothing, however, they could enter mine and we could do whatever it was they were trying that required admin/root privileges.

[latimerio]

..they could enter mine and we could do whatever it was they were trying that required admin/root privileges.

The authorization dialog from Ubuntu Software Center allows to pick a user and enter the admin password of that user.
In contrast to that the dialog box from System -> Administration -> ... does not offer any user selection

Coming back to your questions:
Yes, I am using the standard gnome desktop
and yes, I can install packages through Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center.
The software center does only check for authentication when I pick a package whereas System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Center asks for authorization right away.
The command line for the latter is:
gksu --description /usr/share/applications/synaptic.desktop /usr/sbin/synaptic
and it does not accept my authentication no matter if I invoke it using the gui nor if I type it in a terminal window.

[latimerio]

Add-On:
When I set a root passwd in /etc/shadow the auth dialog from System > Administration > Synaptic Package Center works as expected.
I also tried with a 9.04 Ubuntu Gnome installation and there it works as expected when I use my user password.
So I assume that somehow the sudo mechanism in 9.10 is not implemented properly through all GUI tools.
Neither su-to-root -X -c /usr/sbin/synaptic nor gksu /usr/sbin/synaptic work with my user password even though I am member of groups root adm dialout cdrom floppy sudo audio video plugdev lpadmin admin sambashare and my account is setup in sudoers with ALL=(ALL) ALL.

[latimerio]

Problem tracked down:

Today I found out that running gksudo /usr/sbin/synaptic works perfectly.
Obviously there is a difference between gksu and gksudo which is not taken fully into account.
Especially the script su-to-root only makes use of gksu which leads to the effect that a root password is required instead of the sudo mechanism.
Also gksu should be replaced by gksudo in all Administration menu items and in /usr/sbin/su-to-root.

[Iwillsurvive]

Problem tracked down:

Today I found out that running gksudo /usr/sbin/synaptic works perfectly.
Obviously there is a difference between gksu and gksudo which is not taken fully into account.
Especially the script su-to-root only makes use of gksu which leads to the effect that a root password is required instead of the sudo mechanism.
Also gksu should be replaced by gksudo in all Administration menu items and in /usr/sbin/su-to-root.

I have the same problem.
How is it that you replace gksu with gksudo where and how?




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Iwillsurvive