Questions about Computer Administration
1
vote
1answer
20 views
ntpd vs ntpdate: pros and cons
In order to keep the time accurate on a Ubuntu system one can either:
Run the ntpd (network time protocol daemon) which will run all the time and continuously adjust the system time when clocks ...
1
vote
1answer
1k views
How do I add a network printer in Ubuntu 12.04?
I know the name and the IP address of a network printer, but I can't seem to be able to search by IP address or name.
Ubuntu developers love to move things around to make it difficult for users, so ...
1
vote
1answer
25 views
Disable discovery or listing of HDD partitions
I would like to disable auto detection or listing of certain partitions in applications such as Nautilus. I have a HP laptop that contains a recovery partition along with a EFI partition and I would ...
0
votes
1answer
22 views
How to disable update notification for all users?
This is a partial case of the more general question "Don't bother non-admin users with admin questions":
I have several non-admin users on a computer and I want to disable software updates for all of ...
1
vote
1answer
44 views
Don't bother non-admin users with admin questions
My wife and kids use ubuntu laptops which I administer.
How do I prevent the system from, e.g., offering them software updates? (I know I can disable that for the whole box, but that is just one ...
0
votes
0answers
18 views
'w' command not showing users list when not root ('who' does)
I have multiple users logged on my server (ubuntu 12.10), with ssh. None of them has root privileges.
If I then log in with my admin account and type (without sudoing)
admin1@server:~$ w
the ...
5
votes
4answers
2k views
Recommendation of web server admin control panel (free, open source, deb package)?
I'm looking for:
a safe/secure web admin control panel for a web server
preferably free and open source
in official repositories or at least with regular updates and an easy way to update to newer ...
1
vote
2answers
52 views
Need a simple, foolproof remote admin for Ubuntu Server
I'm running an Ubuntu server 12.10 box and need a foolproof remote admin for my wife/kids who have even less experience of linux than I.
The box only runs as file server and our LAN Minecraft server. ...
2
votes
0answers
31 views
Limited access accounts for a low maintenance deployment?
Forgive me if I haven't done quite as much digging trying to solve this on my own as I could have: I'm currently in Zambia, and my internet access is unpredictible and slow when it's working.
I'm ...
0
votes
0answers
7 views
Easy way to disable/remove GeoClue checkin? [duplicate]
I see that Ubuntu "checks in" to Canonical's GeoIP lookup. Is there a clean way (preferably in the GUI) to disable this?
18
votes
9answers
11k views
How can I make shutdown not require admin password?
If more than one person is logged in on my computer, Ubuntu requires super user authentication when shutting down the computer. How can I make it so that any user can shutdown the computer without ...
8
votes
3answers
548 views
When Ubuntu asks for an admin user's password, how does it decide which administrative user to ask for?
I am setting up an Ubuntu (10.10) machine that will be used by several people. It is a shared machine in a small office. Its primary roles are hosting virtual machines with VirtualBox and serving ...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
How to give nopasswd access to multiple commands via sudoers?
Below is what I know:
I have to add this below line in sudoers file to give rights to the user for particular task.
%user_name% ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/apt-get install
In this case I want to give ...
7
votes
3answers
485 views
Remote administration of a server?
I'm going to install a ubuntu server to provide email, ftp and maybe webserver services too.
I dont want to install a gui for the server, but I'd like to administrate it remotely.
I was thinking in ...
3
votes
2answers
58 views
How to create an image of an entire remote system for using on other (virtual) remote machines?
I have ordered several virtual machines from a hosting provider, which all need exactly the same setup:
same users
same programs installed
same config (except for hostname) including cron-jobs
Is ...
1
vote
0answers
61 views
Recommend way to setup a terminal program to run in the background on boot?
I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 Server edition. Currently I boot up the server, log in, run the application "screen", run an existing terminal program to do some work, and then use screen to lock the ...
2
votes
1answer
71 views
How can I restore the administration menu?
I do not know how I did it but I am now missing my administration menu. I am using 12.04 (but with all upgrades) and GNOME FALL-BACK. Could anyone direct me on how to restore it? I have tried adding ...
4
votes
1answer
117 views
What happened to the graphical PolicyKit settings?
Back in 8.04 or so, when PolicyKit was new, we had a GUI "browser" that enabled us to easily decide things like whether a user should be allowed to shutdown the system when other users were logged in ...
2
votes
1answer
89 views
Is there a way that I can make people have to input an administrators password to change the desktop background?
I have a problem of lots of people changing my desktop background. Is there a way that I can make people have to input an administrators password to change the desktop background. I am running ...
5
votes
1answer
64 views
Preventing Users/Groups from accessing certain Domains
I have created a Study account which I use when doing anything school related work. It's purpose is to remove the distractions of my normal account, such as social media and news websites.
I know ...
3
votes
1answer
3k views
How can I regain admin privileges?
I'm very new to Linux so I don't understand a lot of the terms you guys use. I need a basic answer on why I keep getting admin group does not exist. I accidentally changed my initial account from ...
2
votes
1answer
5k views
Downloading and Installing Latest Version of KILE
In the TeX - LaTeX group of Stack Exchange, I posed a question about the versions of TeXLive under Ubuntu. As I have installed the latest version of TeXLive under Ubuntu, I want to be able to use it ...
0
votes
0answers
29 views
Canonical way to describe server purpose
Is there a canonical way (no pun intended) to describe the purpose of a specific machine?
I have to administer serveral hosts all with the same hostname ("www"). On the shell prompt i can not ...
5
votes
3answers
3k views
How do I add myself into the sudoers group? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How do I add a user to the “sudo” group?
I've added myself back into the admin's group I think, by following this.
But I still can't do commands like:
sudo aptitude ...
0
votes
1answer
50 views
Is server alive app
I'm just wondering, is there an Ubuntu program to check if certain IP's are up ?
I have a few servers and i'm searching for a small program\app\indicator to ping\telnet\tcp-connect my servers and ...
0
votes
1answer
55 views
Prevent Apache restarting automatically after upgrading packages
Following on from an earlier question: Is there a way to download security updates and notify admin without installing the update?
A large number of packages interact with Apache (especially PHP) ...
2
votes
1answer
83 views
Is there a way to download security updates and notify admin without installing the update?
We use apt to download and install security updates on our production server, and most of the time this works well for us. However, this morning, our server downloaded an update, installed the ...
25
votes
4answers
18k views
How are administrators supposed to read root's mail?
What is the Ubuntu way for system administrators to receive system notifications, which typically take the form of e-mail sent to the root account?
Examples of such notifications are the output of ...
11
votes
7answers
4k views
How to remove Change Desktop Background from right click?
I want to restrict users on changing wallpapers and themes. So can anyone say me how to remove
Change Desktop Background option from right click?
Note:
I just totally want to remove that option ...
1
vote
2answers
48 views
What's the complement of `top -u`?
The top -u mary command allows me to see all jobs running by user mary.
What is the command to show the complement of that: all top processes except the jobs running by mary?
2
votes
1answer
112 views
I want to be asked for password for mounting drives
In earlier Ubuntu releases (As far as I remember Natty had it) we were asked for password while trying to mount the drive using Nautilus. But in Ubuntu 12.04 (also in 11.10) it is removed. But I want ...
4
votes
2answers
1k views
I unexpetedly deleted administrator account and the other accounts are asking root password
I unexpectedly deleted my user account (the only administrator for the machine). I have another account which is standard account now i cant access my hard disk or anything with that standard account ...
0
votes
0answers
55 views
What can I do to give some more love and disk space to my database on Ubuntu? [closed]
I'm new to linux. I've deployed a db to ubuntu server on amazon and found out I'm low on disk space. did df (see below) - and found out that I'm 89% capacity on one file system, but less on others. ...
4
votes
1answer
712 views
Allow non-admin users to mount drives via nautilus
I want to give mount privilege to the non-admin users to mount the drives via nautilus. I don't want them to give other admin privilege. I also don't want to use setuid method.
How can I achieve ...
2
votes
2answers
815 views
Tweaking User privileges Ubuntu 12.04
I would like to fine tune user privileges after reviewing default available privileges for a standard user.
Is there a way to fine tune it? I was using 10.04 and 10.10 until now and I could not ...
3
votes
1answer
759 views
How can I set a global timeout for the screensaver?
I am trying to to set a global screensaver and blanking idle timout (with screen locking) that will affect all new user accounts. I noticed that gnome-screensaver in 12.04 when configured by a user, ...
2
votes
1answer
228 views
polkit: disable all users except those in group wheel?
Is it possible to do the following using 1 polkit .pkla file?
Disable all users except those in the wheel group from using polkit.
The users in the wheel group will need to provide the root password ...
-2
votes
1answer
93 views
HOW TO GET TO STEP 1 IN UBUNTU ADMINISTRATION (newbie [closed]
OK, I am reading the help files, honestly. Step 1 of what I want to do is "Click your user name in the men "u , or else' From the menu, click System,Administration... or "Places.."
I have never ...
0
votes
0answers
329 views
WMI Windows Management Instrumentation on Ubuntu
Is there a tool for accessing windows'wmi interface?
I know once there was wmic-client (hardy) but it has been removed.
I'd like to administrate some windows machines remotely trough shell: i.e. ...
17
votes
4answers
4k views
What are the common maintenance tasks?
When i was using windows, i used to run defrags, ccleaner and revouninstaller once a month to keep the system and the registry clean.
I know ubuntu (and all linux distro) has a different system ...
7
votes
2answers
429 views
What is a good starter Ubuntu book?
What is a up-to-date good book that talks about general usage of Ubuntu or Linux in general (but that applies to Ubuntu as well) ?
Things like:
what are the common commands (man, ls, etc.)
basics of ...
4
votes
2answers
8k views
How can I see or change default run level?
In the Linux / Unix administration handbook it mentions that you can edit the /etc/inittab file to change the run level. I don't have that file on 10.04. I Googled this and found a tip saying that ...
0
votes
1answer
103 views
Is it possible to get Drakconf in Ubuntu?
I am using PCLOS for a long time, but now considering to switch to Kubuntu due some unsolved issues in this distro and also because of much bigger applications choice in repositories.
However, ...
0
votes
0answers
50 views
Disable lock when screen turns off for all users on 12.04
I can turn off lock after screen is turned off for myself from System Settings -> Brightness and Lock, but how to do this for the different user (or all users in the system)?
5
votes
3answers
1k views
What Ubuntu server administration books does the community recommend?
What book would you recommend as a reference for Ubuntu server administration?
I'd like to not limit this to server-edition. I'm biased toward development environments that need to strike a balance ...
1
vote
0answers
35 views
How can I add my user to the sudo list? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How do I add myself back as a sudo user?
I have just installed Ubuntu 12.04, Now I am using standard user, but I want to change my user to admin when I got the following ...
1
vote
1answer
2k views
What's the regular way to add an admin user?
I have installed an Ubuntu server cloud version on my AWS instance. Anyway the default user name is specified as ubuntu, and i don't like it. Because I have my own policy for admin account name. So ...
5
votes
1answer
187 views
how to run applications on admin account while is not is use or active?
i want to have applications running (like deluge) in admin account even if admin account is not active or it's guest account or family account is in use.
some times family account is in use and pc is ...
0
votes
1answer
373 views
How do I get around administrator priviliges are required for this task when installing real vnc?
When I try to install real VNC and enter in the registration code I get administrator privileges are required for this task. How do I get around this? I am the only user on the computer and already ...
1
vote
0answers
13 views
Deactivated my Systemadministrator whil i was loged in as standard-user so I can't reactivate it because of the deactivated administrator-password [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How do I reset a lost Administrative (root) password?
(My distribution is Ubuntu 12.04)
because of the advice to deactivate the Root-User in reasons for safty etc. I ...
