Questions about Computer Administration
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 ...
20
votes
7answers
3k views
See computer's uptime and history
I was wondering if it is at all possible to find out when the computer was switched on, what files where accessed what folders were opened, what programs run and when the computer was resumed and put ...
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 ...
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 ...
14
votes
3answers
439 views
Which logs should I pay attention to?
There are many logs in /var/log/ For a standard home installation, which ones should I be checking regularly?
12
votes
3answers
1k views
How do I restrict user bandwidth usage?
I want to restrict each user to 300 gigabytes of internet usage per month. Are there any GUI or command-based tools to manager my users' bandwidth?
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 ...
8
votes
1answer
408 views
how come sudo give root privileges for a user not in /etc/sudoers?
I just wonder how sudo privileges are found with ubuntu, from a technical point of view.
Users with sudo privileges are not present in /etc/sudoers, so this looks a little bit exotic.
Was the source ...
8
votes
3answers
544 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 ...
7
votes
3answers
482 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 ...
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 ...
7
votes
4answers
4k views
How do I enable GNOME system tools?
I am running Ubuntu 10.04 with GNOME 2.30.2. This is a VMWare workstation image provided by another company that I do not have support in this regard. I am trying to access the graphical tools for ...
6
votes
5answers
509 views
Single administrator computer for systems with only regular account on network
How can I have systems with only a regular account with administrative tasks managed by a single computer?
EDIT
I simply want be able to add/remove software on all computers from a single system. ...
6
votes
6answers
14k views
Get root access for copying files to /usr/share/…?
To be short, I want to copy a folder to a location /usr/share/screenlets/..... I don't know how to do it. I am using Ubuntu 10.04. I tried by logging in as root from terminal giving "su with my ...
6
votes
2answers
982 views
ssh key administration for many users, servers
My company has some remote Ubuntu servers. The access to these servers is controlled by ssh keys. Managing these keys is quite a pain, especially when an employee leaves or joins the company.
Is ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
What are the equivalents of “gksu nautilus” in other Ubuntu Derivatives
How do I open the file manager in superuser mode in the same way as doing gksu nautilus in Ubuntu.
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 ...
5
votes
1answer
5k views
The list of running daemons
How to get the list of daemons and theirs statuses (stopped, running, crashed, etc) for each runlevel? Like rc-status in gentoo.
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 ...
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 ...
5
votes
1answer
63 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 ...
5
votes
1answer
42 views
How can I build an installer by tracking filesystem changes?
Ages ago I used to package software on Windows using InstallShield AdminStudio. I used it for building customized installers for company applications from existing app installers. I'd like to do ...
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 ...
4
votes
2answers
216 views
Securing system admin account
As it is well known, it is recommended that the system administrator login to the system using a normal user (non-root). When the admin needs to do privileged tasks, sudo can be used to become ...
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 ...
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 ...
4
votes
1answer
684 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 ...
4
votes
1answer
246 views
Guide or book for ubuntu server
Is there any detailed guide or book for Ubuntu server? For installation and administration. Free or commercial.
4
votes
2answers
608 views
What is a user-friendly way to log off other users?
What is the Ubuntu equivalent of this interface?
I am looking for a user-friendly method that the owner of a computer can use to log off other users without having to restart.
The case I'm ...
4
votes
1answer
116 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 ...
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 ...
3
votes
3answers
1k views
I want a non admin user to install software. What commands do I need to add to sudoers?
I want to edit the /etc/sudoers file so that a non-admin user can install software via the Software Center in Linux Mint 10. The reason for this is that I want a user to have the capability to ...
3
votes
4answers
4k views
Deleted Myself from Admin Group - Now Getting Error usermod: cannot lock /etc/passwd; try again later [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Cannot lock '/etc/group' in recovery mode
I have a laptop with Ubuntu 11.10 that is shared between myself and two other family members. My user id was setup as ...
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 ...
3
votes
1answer
761 views
Removing popularity-contest without trashing the system?
I do want to uninstall the "popularity-contest" package from my system.
While I know that I can disable it with
$ dpkg-reconfigure popularity-contest
it is still a package I want removed.
...
3
votes
3answers
299 views
Which way is the best to manage a workstation from windows server 2008?
I mean, are there any tools to manage mixed networks with Windows and Ubuntu workstations from single Windows Server 2008? Some like GPO or Windows Managment Console.
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 ...
3
votes
2answers
160 views
Tutorial on making use of logs
I know I can find logs in /var/log/, they contain powerful information, but I don't really use them often (on desktop or server).
Is there any good guide to learn how to make use of system logs on ...
3
votes
1answer
736 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, ...
3
votes
1answer
1k views
How to define an environment variable systemwide with /etc/environment?
I am trying to set an environment variable system wide.
Following the ubuntu site recommendations , I set it up to my /etc/environment file.
The thing is when I log out and log in again, I have to ...
3
votes
0answers
224 views
How I can monitor traffic on a certain port with munin? [closed]
How I can monitor traffic on a certain port with munin?
I already use plugin port_ to see number of connection on a certain port, but I also need to see the traffic.
2
votes
2answers
80 views
Changing groups as nonadmin
Recently, I accidently lowered my privledges on Ubuntu. I was trying to add vboxusers group to my account, and quickly googled to fund out I can add groups by sudo usermod -G vboxusers USER
Unaware ...
2
votes
3answers
125 views
can apt do everthing dpkg can?
As I understand things apt uses dpkg are there any operations that you can do with dpkg that can't be done with apt? as a new User to Ubuntu server do I need to learn anything about dpkg?
2
votes
1answer
416 views
Locking down Systems in a Computer Lab School for Orphans
I am helping out an NGO, called Orphans Found Fund, here in Arusha Tanzania setup a computer lab to teach students about Ubuntu and open source applications. I have installed Ubuntu 10.10 on all the ...
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 ...
2
votes
2answers
809 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 ...
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 ...
2
votes
2answers
505 views
Network Administrating Software (Similar to ClearOS)
I am looking for a network administrating software that is similar to the ClearOS in this link: http://www.clearfoundation.com/Software/screenshots.html
Of course the software should be for Ubuntu or ...
2
votes
2answers
194 views
How to remove a locale (i.e. to drop it from `$LANGUAGE` variable)?
For some reason I have an extra unneeded language installed on my system (more precisely, $LANGUAGE variable is ru:en_CA:en where supposed to be ru:en, and also apt tries to load addresses like ...
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 ...
