Running commands as normal user

Who'sThere? · 2011-01-05 05:27:05

Hi.

Is it possible to do these things?

Run audio without sudo...
(Un)mount partitions without sudo...
Poweroff, or reboot, without sudo...

For instance, If I run:

adduser myusername audio

I'm told that the user already exists. I'm pretty sure nobody would design a system where everything you do needs to be sudo'ed. What am I doing wrong?

SimpleKiwi · 2011-01-05 06:14:58

To add yourself to a group you need to use gpasswd:

sudo gpasswd -a yourusernamehere audio

MadTux · 2011-01-05 06:16:36

Did you read

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide#Part_IV:_Sound

The appropriate command for adding your user to the audio group is

gpasswd -a myusername audio

For additional groups see

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Groups

Mr. Alex · 2011-01-05 09:49:16

Poweroff, or reboot, without sudo...

# chmod a+s `which reboot`

will let you reboot without root privileges. The same for other commands. It's insecure though.

bharani · 2011-01-05 10:16:18

Mr. Alex wrote:

Poweroff, or reboot, without sudo...
# chmod a+s `which reboot`
will let you reboot without root privileges. The same for other commands. It's insecure though.

A better way is to edit sudoers file to run them without password ,then add bunch of aliases to run them easily.

Mr.Elendig · 2011-01-05 13:50:40

Mr. Alex wrote:

Poweroff, or reboot, without sudo...
# chmod a+s `which reboot`
will let you reboot without root privileges. The same for other commands. It's insecure though.

Nasty. Better to use consolekit/upower.

Add on udisk and/or hal, and you got rootless mounting too.

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2011-01-05 13:51:29)

karol · 2011-01-05 14:28:30

You can check pmount for mounting as a user.

makos · 2011-01-05 14:30:55

You can mount partitions without using sudo by adding "user" to the "<options>" section in your fstab file.

Part of my fstab for my other disk:

/dev/sda1  /mnt/backup  ext4  noauto,user  0  1

I can mount that disk by using "mount /dev/sda1" as a normal user without any problems.

stqn · 2011-01-05 14:35:28

makos wrote:

You can mount partitions without using sudo by adding "user" to the "<options>" section in your fstab file.

Has never worked here... Something else must be needed.

Edit: Ok, I tried harder and it _does_ work at least for my /boot (ext2.) It doesn't work for NTFS partitions and most of my disks use that...

Last edited by stqn (2011-01-05 14:51:41)

makos · 2011-01-05 14:38:51

stqn wrote:

Has never worked here... Something else must be needed.

Weird. I did chown /mnt/backup so I'm the owner of that dir (and anything that's mounted there), but I don't know if that's the case.

BaconPie · 2011-01-05 14:42:44

I use pmount/pumount for mounting/unmounting as user.

I've edited my sudoers file to give my user account access (only on this computer) to issue certain commands without a password. As far as I'm concerned, system commands such as shutdown should only be allowed to run as root. It's just a convenience for me not to have to type my password when using sudo.

# less /etc/sudoers
# sudoers file.
#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
# Failure to use 'visudo' may result in syntax or file permission errors
# that prevent sudo from running.
#
# See the sudoers man page for the details on how to write a sudoers file.
#

# Host alias specification

# User alias specification

# Cmnd alias specification

# Defaults specification

# Runas alias specification

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
tom     ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Uncomment to allow people in group wheel to run all commands
# %wheel        ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Same thing without a password
# %wheel        ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

# Samples
# %users  ALL=/sbin/mount /cdrom,/sbin/umount /cdrom
# %users  localhost=/sbin/shutdown -h now

tom     kiwi = NOPASSWD: /sbin/halt
tom     kiwi = NOPASSWD: /sbin/reboot
tom     kiwi = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/eject
tom     kiwi = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/pm-suspend
tom     kiwi = NOPASSWD: /home/tom/bin/backup
tom     kiwi = NOPASSWD: /etc/rc.d/httpd

Which says: For the user tom on the computer kiwi allow him to run command /sbin/halt without a password.

Last edited by BaconPie (2011-01-05 14:43:09)

stqn · 2011-01-05 14:54:00

makos wrote:

Weird. I did chown /mnt/backup so I'm the owner of that dir (and anything that's mounted there), but I don't know if that's the case.

Sorry, I was wrong: it actually works, just not for NTFS partitions. Directory ownership is not required (I tried with /boot which is owned by root.)

Misfit138 · 2011-01-05 15:32:28

Try something like this in your fstab:

/dev/sdx  /mnt/win  ntfs-3g   gid=users,umask=0022    0       0

That will allow people in the group 'users' access to the ntfs partition.

karol · 2011-01-05 16:20:26

@stqn
Please check the wiki and let's not make OT here.

Who'sThere? · 2011-01-06 19:20:53

After adding my normal user with the 'gpasswd -a' to groups 'audio', 'power', and 'disk', I still can't do any of the original questions.

I don't want to use fstab as my drive configuration is often changing, and I don't want it to do any auto-mounting outside of /. That's a negative on 'pmount' as an option as well. I need to do everything from the command line, with as few apps running as possible.

stqn · 2011-01-06 19:34:02

karol wrote:

@stqn
Please check the wiki and let's not make OT here.

You are off topic, not me.

hokasch · 2011-01-07 11:19:43

Pmount is not doing any auto-mounting nor dos it run in the background, but AFAIK you can not change the default parent mount point.

What is your objection against sudo (e.g. posts #5 and #11) for these tasks? What do you mean by "running audio" as user? For shutdown, also have a look at /etc/shutdown.allow (shutdown manpage).

Mr Green · 2011-01-07 12:22:28

Simply learn how to alias commands job done!

alias foo='string of commands'

In .bashrc

xxxspuddy · 2011-01-07 21:28:44

I know that Solaris has a nice way of adding privileges to a user account - role based access control (RBAC) that should achieve everything OP requested

I haven't tried it, but t looks like SELinux has something similar:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gr … chset#RBAC

loafer · 2011-01-07 21:39:12

@Who'sThere?, which DE/WM are you using?

Who'sThere? · 2011-01-07 22:27:06

hokasch wrote:

What do you mean by "running audio" as user?.

I don't have working audio with any apps that use it, unless I run them with sudo.

loafer wrote:

@Who'sThere?, which DE/WM are you using?

I do almost everything from the command line, but I use Openbox + Tint2 when I absolutely have to run X.

tomk · 2011-01-07 22:31:49

Did you log out/in again after adding yourself to the relevant groups? Group additions need to be activated that way.

Who'sThere? · 2011-01-08 19:38:32

Sorry for the late return. I'd been jumping back and forth between various Linux distros.

- Okay, it seems that audio is playing now, good.

- Mounting still needs sudo.

- Powering off, and reboot, still need sudo.

- And after trying to add my user to the group 'dialout', I'm told it doesn't exist.

I'd like to run wvdial as an user. Even with sudo, wvdial will not work aka 'sudo wvdial &'. I have to 'sudo su', and then run 'wvdial &' for it to work.

Last edited by Who'sThere? (2011-01-08 19:38:58)

jasonwryan · 2011-01-08 21:27:02

All of your issues could be solved if you followed the advice already offered in the thread.

Posting a menu of items that you still have issues with (when the solutions are in the posts above) is tantamount to help vampirism. Please at least try some of the solutions before posting again.

Who'sThere? · 2011-01-08 21:38:41

Okay. I'm not installing any more services/apps that'll take away processing time, or RAM. This is an older PC.

So my only option is to run with sudo (albeit without password prompts)? No way around it...

Is there any reason I should not remove my user from the 'optical', 'power', and 'disk' groups then?

Also, I don't seem to be able to run wvdial, even with sudo. I end up having to run it from a different console where I've already logged in as root.

Last edited by Who'sThere? (2011-01-08 21:39:18)

Arch Linux

#1 2011-01-05 05:27:05

Running commands as normal user

#2 2011-01-05 06:14:58

Re: Running commands as normal user

#3 2011-01-05 06:16:36

Re: Running commands as normal user

#4 2011-01-05 09:49:16

Re: Running commands as normal user

#5 2011-01-05 10:16:18

Re: Running commands as normal user

#6 2011-01-05 13:50:40

Re: Running commands as normal user

#7 2011-01-05 14:28:30

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#8 2011-01-05 14:30:55

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#9 2011-01-05 14:35:28

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#10 2011-01-05 14:38:51

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#11 2011-01-05 14:42:44

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#12 2011-01-05 14:54:00

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#13 2011-01-05 15:32:28

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#14 2011-01-05 16:20:26

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#15 2011-01-06 19:20:53

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#16 2011-01-06 19:34:02

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#17 2011-01-07 11:19:43

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#18 2011-01-07 12:22:28

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#19 2011-01-07 21:28:44

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#20 2011-01-07 21:39:12

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#21 2011-01-07 22:27:06

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#22 2011-01-07 22:31:49

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#23 2011-01-08 19:38:32

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#24 2011-01-08 21:27:02

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#25 2011-01-08 21:38:41

Re: Running commands as normal user

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