Help... gksu and user/permission problems....[SOLVED]

jeff story · 2009-06-01 00:25:20

First off I want to say that I have searched both here and google for a solution that solves my problem and so far no luck....
So please stay with me here. I know this is long and drawn out but I didn't know how else to be clear on what I see as problems.

If I enter "whoami" in a regular terminal, in my user account, in gnome desktop, it shows:

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ whoami
jeff
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$

Then if I "su root" and enter the password it shows:

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ whoami
jeff
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ su root
Password: 
[root@Arch2009p2 jeff]#

Then if I "whoami" it shows:

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ whoami
jeff
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ su root
Password: 
[root@Arch2009p2 jeff]# whoami
root
[root@Arch2009p2 jeff]#

Which all seems normal and makes scene.
However I cannot successfully enter the following code in normal user mode that should work:

gksu nautilus
gksu gedit

I also cannot successfully execute in root [root@Arch2009p2 jeff]# mode:

nautilus

If I open a "root" nautilus terminal from the gnome menu, I can enter nautilus and it works fine.
In this terminal, it shows the following:

bash-3.2# whoami
root
bash-3.2#

So my question is who is "bash-3.2" and why can "he" open a root application when I can't as jeff or jeff root? I didn't knowingly create the user bash.
Perhaps I slipped up somehow upon installing and the bash shell version became the user??

Please excuse my poor terminology and understanding as I am a two day Arch (real linux) user coming from Ubuntu.....

BTW....What a pleasant learning experience getting my Arch 2009.2 x86-64 Gnome desktop up and running. I have Firefox, all my browser and media codecs and plugins, gdesklets, proper ATI driver, everything is great. Except the above issue.

I tried all the Ubuntu 64bit from 8.04 to 9.04, and all proved no to my satisfaction. Ubuntu 32bit is another story and is great, runs fine on my 64bit hardware....except not seeing all the memory.

This is how and why I am an Arch user today as the main OS on my new computer!!!

Thanks in advance for any help.

Last edited by jeff story (2009-06-04 21:47:15)

whoops · 2009-06-01 10:02:43

Hi!

Please excuse my poor terminology, too (and try not to adapt anything ).

bash-3.2 is your shell-thingy ("The GNU Bourne Again shell") AKA "command line language that makes stuff do stuff"... I think gnome uses some "special" way to open root terminals (fast user switch or fakeroot stuff? No idea, not a gnome fan.) which isn't that "real" and leaves you with a pretty much empty home / ~ - resulting in no personalized "stuff-in-front-of-shell" which is usually defined in .bashrc or something.

You can edit the start menu, to see what command exactly is executed for your root terminal, maybe that helps understand why other methods don't work. All I remember is: it was sort of a little bit more complicated than what I expected and one of the reasons I got rid of those gnome things quite some time ago.

As for gksu:
- What does "cannot successfully execute" (both times) mean? Does it give you any errors? Just do nothing at all?
- Are you sure gksu is installed? Did you try "gksudo"?
- Did you try to execute something other than nautilus after su'ing?

Trent · 2009-06-01 14:09:58

Welcome to the forums!
bash-3.2# is just a prompt with the bash version in it; it doesn't contain a username. The important thing is that you see the hash (#) instead of the dollar sign ($) which tells you you are root as opposed to a normal user. I don't know why you're getting different results with the "root terminal" application than with changing users with su.
Open your regular terminal and su to root again. Type 'nautilus'. Why do you say it doesn't work? Is there an error message? Does nothing happen at all?
Open your regular terminal and type 'gksu nautilus'. Why do you say this doesn't work? Is there an error message? Is it the same error message as before?
Open your regular terminal and type 'nautilus' by itself. Does it work? Does it work at all (e.g. by clicking something in the Places menu)?

dmartins · 2009-06-01 14:27:43

Hi there,

I can reproduce the same behaviour on my machine, I've just never tried to run nautilus as root before. Looking at the "Root Terminal" menu item shows that it runs "gksu -l gnome-terminal". According to the man page for gksu, -l makes it use a login shell.
With this in mind, the following ways of opening nautilus as root should work:

-As a regular user, run "gksu -l nautilus".
-As a regular user, switch to the root account using "su -", then run nautilus

I have never been 100% clear on the difference between a login shell & a non login shell (or whatever it's actually called), but it definately makes a difference here.

MoonSwan · 2009-06-01 20:33:01

Login shell means it uses the path that the user in question would normally have/use, I believe.

As for the "running gui apps as root" thing goes, try this little experiment:

- open a term window as a user
- type xhost +local
- do su - && nautilus

If nautilus starts up, you're dealing with a simple Xhost issue, a security program that prevents unauthorized use of the shell/gui. If that is the case, add this to your .bashrc (if you have only 1 user on the system):

# allows others to run gui apps in x
xhost + &>/dev/null

If you're on a multi-user system, add the above command to the /etc/profile file as Root. You'll have to either logout & in again, using either solution, or you can just run this command on either file to make things work:

source .bashrc (or source /etc/profile)

webofunni · 2009-06-01 20:41:13

Hello jeff,

In case of running the file manager in root, I think you need to use su -. The simple su will not change the environment variables of the normal user.

The su - will run the bash profile and other login files of the root user and will make necessary changes for the root environment, so try the su - and run nautilus.

For the gksu , what is the error you are getting ?

jeff story · 2009-06-01 21:26:50

Ok....

Yes I have gksu installed.

Nautilus will open from my user shell with my default user permissions.

I have been getting various errors when trying "gksu nautilus", "su nautilus" from my user shell. Usually something about GConf not communicating or getting a reply....stale NFS locks.....etc, etc. Last one had error #26153, and they always repeat the error over and over.

I'm not sure if related, but upon booting I see "failed to mount local tmpfs files...file system does not exist".

I thought that possibly this was caused from a permissiom problem so I have been changing permissions on some files but no difference. I need to restore the default file permissions. I recall chmod and or chown....777 and some other numbers when I hosed up Ubuntu permissions. Is there a quick fix code for this?

Below is some output code examples.

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ nautilus
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$

no problem here, works normally.

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ gksu nautilus
gksu: Fatal IO error 0 (Success) on X server :0.0.
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$

Ok this is the first time I've seen this one.

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ su nautilus
su: user nautilus does not exist
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$

This is also a different error I haven't seen.

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ su
Password: 
[root@Arch2009p2 jeff]# nautilus

(nautilus:7174): EggSMClient-WARNING **: Failed to connect to the session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported


(nautilus:7174): Eel-WARNING **: GConf error:
  Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)

(nautilus:7174): Eel-WARNING **: GConf error:
  Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)

(nautilus:7174): Eel-WARNING **: GConf error:
  Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/apps/nautilus/preferences': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/desktop/gnome/file_views': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/desktop/gnome/background': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/apps/nautilus/desktop': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/apps/nautilus/icon_view': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
(nautilus:7174): Unique-DBus-WARNING **: Unable to open a connection to the session bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

(nautilus:7174): Unique-DBus-WARNING **: Unable to connect to the running instance, aborting.

(nautilus:7174): Unique-DBus-WARNING **: Unable to open a connection to the session bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

(nautilus:7174): Unique-DBus-WARNING **: Unable to connect to the running instance, aborting.
[root@Arch2009p2 jeff]#

This what I usually see in the 2 previous examples, but always with different numbers.

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ su
Password: 
[root@Arch2009p2 jeff]# gksu nautilus
GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)

(nautilus:11566): EggSMClient-WARNING **: Failed to connect to the session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported


(nautilus:11566): Eel-WARNING **: GConf error:
  Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)

(nautilus:11566): Eel-WARNING **: GConf error:
  Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)

(nautilus:11566): Eel-WARNING **: GConf error:
  Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/apps/nautilus/preferences': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/desktop/gnome/file_views': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/desktop/gnome/background': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/apps/nautilus/desktop': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)GConf warning: failure listing pairs in `/apps/nautilus/icon_view': Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
(nautilus:11566): Unique-DBus-WARNING **: Unable to open a connection to the session bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

(nautilus:11566): Unique-DBus-WARNING **: Unable to connect to the running instance, aborting.

(nautilus:11566): Unique-DBus-WARNING **: Unable to open a connection to the session bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

(nautilus:11566): Unique-DBus-WARNING **: Unable to connect to the running instance, aborting.
[root@Arch2009p2 jeff]#

This is also the usual response.

[img]/home/jeff/Desktop/Screenshot.png[/img]

Ok the screenshot's not going to show.... I cant even open a root terminal from the gnome menu now. This has changed since yesterday. When I try, I get a pop up error,

Failed to exec new process. No such file or directioy

Same thing if I run:

gksu -l nautilus

I have to get to work now, but I'll try your fix tomorrow MoonSwan.

Last edited by jeff story (2009-06-01 23:50:35)

Gen2ly · 2009-06-02 00:14:58

jeff story wrote:

...
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ su nautilus
su: user nautilus does not exist
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$
This is also a different error I haven't seen.

'su' is a command short for "switch user", it's not meant to launch-applications.

jeff story wrote:

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ su
Password: 
[root@Arch2009p2 jeff]# nautilus

(nautilus:7174): EggSMClient-WARNING **: Failed to connect to the session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported...

Arch doesn't allow access to the X server from root for security-reasons. This is a normal. If you want to edit files that do not have regular user permission, I'd recommend getting root access:

su

and then use a terminal editor like nano.

jeff story · 2009-06-02 01:06:57

Gen2ly wrote:

Arch doesn't allow access to the X server from root for security-reasons. This is a normal. If you want to edit files that do not have regular user permission, I'd recommend getting root access:

Code:
su
and then use a terminal editor like nano.

Yes...that would solve these issues I'm having.
I been using linux for awhile now. With Ubuntu, you really don't have to use the shell very often. I'll just have to take this next step......
Thinking about it, I could still use my GUI file browser and editor to be "comfortable" and look at things.
If I need to edit anything, I just open a terminal, use Nano or Vim.

Before installing Arch, I was aware of shell enviorment editors.....but never bothered to use or try them.

I'll also have to get "comfy" with copying, moving, manipulating files in the Bash shell. Any advice or
specific tools for this other than just learning more command line?? Something like a shell enviroment
file browser....... hang on....that's what the shell is for!!!

After installing arch and being "forced" to try it, I see that they're really useful tools. Didn't ever think I'd be saying that about anything in a shell!!!

whoops · 2009-06-02 09:39:43

Wait a second... I'm using root-geany windows all the time. Wouldn't want to be stuck with nano! I mean - vim might be great for people who are used to it (although I personally am not able to overcome the initial frustration and get into it), but nano... is in my opinion more like something you use if your xorg doesn't work or if you only got to remove a "#" / change a number etc. (<= not wanting to start an editor-discussion, just trying to point out why: "don't use it!" might not be that much of a fix; there should at least be the possibility.)

I don't know if I'd recommend a root-nautilus (well, most likely not nautilus...), but shouldn't it really be working to call it via su, sudo and the whole rest? I know I had some problems with it when I tried gnome - the error messages here seem mostly familiar, but the applications worked fine anyway.

Last edited by whoops (2009-06-02 09:42:12)

dmartins · 2009-06-02 13:11:01

whoops wrote:

I don't know if I'd recommend a root-nautilus (well, most likely not nautilus...), but shouldn't it really be working to call it via su, sudo and the whole rest? I know I had some problems with it when I tried gnome - the error messages here seem mostly familiar, but the applications worked fine anyway.

You bring up a good point. The whole point of gksu and gksudo is to run GUI apps as root, so they should work.

I did a little bit more experimenting and it seems that gksudo works for nautilus but gksu doesn't. Of course, you need to have sudo set up for your user before it'll work at all. If you want to save yourself a couple of keystrokes, you can go to System > Preferences > Privilege Granting and set the authentication mode to sudo. This will make gksu behave like gksudo and nautilus seems to open. So far though, I've only really found nautilus to be a problem here. It just doesn't want to open using any form of su.

Last edited by dmartins (2009-06-02 13:11:38)

whoops · 2009-06-02 13:44:31

Hmh... when I was still using it, nautilus was trying "strange stuff" when started that seemed pretty random as far as my sense for what "default behaviour" should be like was concerned. Like "grabbing the desktop" no matter who or what "draws" there or registering to sessions that don't exist... or opening another window for an already running process that belongs to another user.

Anyway: "nautilus --help" did actually help most of the time; adding stuff like "--nodesktop --newprocess --defaultprofile"

(those are improvised, not real commands - can't find the guts to install nautilus to test. Gnomes are evil, they're always collecting stuff and hiding it in strange places )

jeff story · 2009-06-02 19:29:30

Ok,

I can get into nautilus with root user rights by using the following code:

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ su - && nautilus
Password: 
[root@Arch2009p2 ~]# nautilus
Initializing nautilus-open-terminal extension

** (nautilus:32258): WARNING **: libeel-2.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
** Message: Initializing gksu extension...

** (nautilus:32258): WARNING **: Unable to add monitor: Operation not supported

Even though it gives warnings, nautilus comes up with root privileges.
In Ubuntu, it always shows similar warnings.

MoonSwan wrote
If nautilus starts up, you're dealing with a simple Xhost issue, a security program that prevents unauthorized use of the shell/gui.
Code:
# allows others to run gui apps in x
xhost + &>/dev/null
If you're on a multi-user system, add the above command to the /etc/profile file as Root.

So I edited the file.....still no gksu nautilus.

I added "sudo" package from the repos.

I edited the /etc/sudoers file using visudo, to match my Ubuntu's, which was just this line.

%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

In my user shell, still no "gksu nautilus", log in as root from my shell "su" , then "nautilus", or "gksu nautilus", still no go.

dmartins · 2009-06-02 19:44:05

Unless you've changed the authentication mode to sudo under System > Preferences > Privilege granting, gksu is still going to behave the same way.

As for the sudoers file, that will allow members of the admin group to gain root privileges using the sudo command. Is your user a member of the admin group? I doubt it, Arch doesn't have an admin group by default!
You can check by typing "groups" at a terminal. If you followed the Beginner's Guide to get you Arch install up and running, chances are you've already added yourself to the 'wheel' group. If not, you should add yourself to it and change %admin to %wheel in /etc/sudoers.

The wheel group has been somewhat of a standard 'admin' group in linux for years. Why Ubuntu always has to go and change things, I don't know.

To be honest though, I'm not sure if running nautilus as root is a very good idea. It would be so easy to move files you shouldn't move. At least with the console you have to think a bit about what you're doing.

jeff story · 2009-06-02 20:13:56

dmartins wrote
Unless you've changed the authentication mode to sudo under System > Preferences > Privilege granting, gksu is still going to behave the same way.

Yea I tried changing that to "sudo" and "su". No difference.

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ groups
network video audio optical storage users
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$

For my installation, I used the official Arch install wiki's in addition to another source for details regarding gnome install in Arch.

Gnome menu: System>Admin>Users and Groups shows nothing in dialog box, and I can't add anything in either my user account or logged into a root GUI user account.

How would I create the wheel group, and then add myself to it?

I'm going to check out the wiki on that also......

Thanks!

MoonSwan · 2009-06-02 20:44:10

@OP, you missed a step, which I also posted in this thread. You need to use the "source" command on the file you changed before the change will take effect. Do this and (assuming it was the .bashrc file you edited) your xhost issue should be resolved:

source ~/.bashrc

Source just means "read this file, put the configuration things in it into memory and change the shell to suit what is said in there".

jeff story · 2009-06-02 21:23:54

OK.....PROBLEM SOLVED......

Thanks for all the input and help here everyone!

Moonswan, I thought I had the option to log out, and I rebooted following your advise, or use the code, based on the following sentence.

You'll have to either logout & in again, using either solution, or you can just run this command on either file to make things work:

If I was correct in the reboot, it still didn't work.

I did however check out the usergroup situation per dmartins advice.

The wheel group was present, but I wasn't a member, so I added myself.

I also added my username "jeff" to /etc/sudoers file in place of %admin I had incorrectly added earlier.

Now I have fixed my "gksu nautilus" problem but I'm not sure exactly which change of the last two corrected it, and if it was a combination of
previous changes that fixed my problems.

Now I'm also concerned if I have set up any security issues on my system.

Should "jeff" have been added to the /etc/sudoers file?

Would just adding myself to group "wheel" do what I wanted without changing the /etc/sudoers?

Does having my user name " jeff=ALL(ALL) ALL" cause security issues?

What does the % signify preceding the other entry's in the /etc/sudoers file?

Was this all created by not being a member of the wheel group?

GNU nano 2.0.9                                  File: /etc/sudoers.tmp                                                                            

# 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

# 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

jeff ALL=(ALL) ALL

[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ groups
wheel network video audio optical storage users
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$

Last edited by jeff story (2009-06-02 21:30:44)

dmartins · 2009-06-02 21:56:23

Alright, glad it's working!

In sudoers:
The % sign means that it is a group you are allowing access to. So %wheel, or %admin would allow users in those groups to use sudo.
Without a %, it is a single user.

You actually have a bit of redundancy in your sudoers file now. Anyone in the wheel group will be able to run any command WITHOUT a password and you (jeff) can run any command after specifying your password.

Since you are jeff, and you're in the wheel group, I'm not sure which one of those lines is going to actually take effect. I'd guess the first of the two.

I don't think allowing 'jeff' to use sudo is a security problem, but maybe allowing anyone in the wheel group to use sudo with no password is.. It's really up to you!

MoonSwan · 2009-06-04 05:53:43

I gave the incorrect filename, sorry. The file you want to edit is /etc/profile.bash. Sorry about that. Adding yourself to "wheel" is likely what fixed it if I had to hazard a guess.

jeff story · 2009-06-04 21:56:36

OK.........

Thanks for the clarification on that.

I just removed from the /etc/profile

# allows others to run gui apps in x
xhost + &>/dev/null

And I'll log out.

Last edited by jeff story (2009-06-04 21:57:36)

orphius1970 · 2009-07-15 21:39:28

gksu and gksudo have been known by the gnome development team as being buggy.
Try using just sudo, it works on my system.
If it doesn't work with nautilus, try using thunar.

Arch Linux

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Re: Help... gksu and user/permission problems....[SOLVED]

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