Questions tagged [sudo]

The sudo command allows users to run programs with the privileges of a different user (normally the root user). Use this tag for questions related to configuring and using the sudo command.

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How to enter password only once in a bash script needing sudo

Data I want operator users on this machine to mount their own cifs shares The sudoers file already contains the /bin/mount -t cifs //*/* /media/* -o username=* command for all operators I want the ...
Fabby's user avatar
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23 votes
4 answers
146k views

"Set document metadata failed" when I run sudo gedit

I have upgraded 14.04 to 16.04 . Now I am trying to open the gedit from terminal by passing the command: sudo gedit /some/where/file.txt but it is throwing an error stating that: (gedit:2090): ...
alok_007's user avatar
  • 331
21 votes
3 answers
51k views

Run apt-get without sudo

This might be a very naive question, but I wanted to know how I could give multiple users access to a single computer without making them root users. How would I give them limitted sudo access such ...
puk's user avatar
  • 1,161
20 votes
2 answers
58k views

How to allow execution without prompting for password using sudo?

I am writing a Java application where i need to do a command line execution and get a result back, but when i execute the command, it ask for sudo password. So far i tried: $ sudo -s $ vim /etc/...
user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
26k views

Best practices on using sudo in a bash script

I have a long and long-running bash script where a handful of commands need to be run as root while the majority of commands need to be run as the regular user before sudo, because it would mess up ...
Dakkaron's user avatar
  • 274
16 votes
1 answer
27k views

Cannot lock '/etc/group' in recovery mode

I've currently booted into recovery mode, because I removed my sole user from admin :/ When I run adduser oadams admin, I get gpasswd: cannot lock /etc/group; try again later. For what it's worth, ...
oadams's user avatar
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15 votes
2 answers
4k views

Run only parts of a script as sudo, entering password only once

I am writing a script (actually a combination of scripts and makefile) that installs external dependencies: some apt-get commands, some git cloning, building, installing, adding users to groups, ... ...
Gauthier's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
13k views

How to configure pkexec to not ask for password?

I have a GUI application that needs to call a daemon (written in Python) with superuser privileges. I would like to do this without prompting the user for a password. Since the daemon is a script, I ...
Chinmay Kanchi's user avatar
10 votes
4 answers
79k views

How to execute sudo commands with Expect & send commands in bash script?

Can anybody let me know how to execute sudo commands with expect? I tried the following but this is not working. Can anyone give me suggestion please? set login "sasuke" set addr "hostname" set pw "...
sasuke's user avatar
  • 155
8 votes
2 answers
13k views

Password not working in Graphical Applications (gksu)? Works with sudo

I am having a problem where when I try to run say GParted, when I am prompted for a password, it says "Incorrect Password" But when I enter the same password using terminal sudo gparted for example, ...
Jiew Meng's user avatar
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7 votes
2 answers
41k views

How do I deal with 'sudoers.so must be only be writable by owner'?

Whenever I try to install or remove something using terminal it gives the following error message: bluebird@bluebird:~$ sudo apt-get update sudo: /usr/lib/sudo/sudoers.so must be only be writable by ...
Loy's user avatar
  • 71
7 votes
1 answer
6k views

Unable to open any graphical app with "sudo"

Tried to find some answer here: Can't launch graphical apps from terminal after updating to 15.10, but it didn't solve my problem. $ sudo gedit Failed to connect to Mir: Failed to connect to ...
Inmate4587's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
14k views

Cannot change Intel turbo boost (/sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo/ not accessible)

Trying to follow this answer under Disabling Intel Turbo Boost in ubuntu: In order to see the driver: cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_driver intel_pstate intel_pstate intel_pstate ...
user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
3k views

What is the difference between sudo X and running X as root?

My question is asking regarding a specific observation that I would like to understand. I just tried to install the package rJava in R and failed even though I prefaced the installation as suggested ...
Raffael's user avatar
  • 3,771
3 votes
4 answers
25k views

How to run a file with sudo without a password? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How to run an application using sudo without a password? I've made a script that preforms various system tasks, that I run regularly, but I have to use sudo to run the script, ...
codesmith's user avatar
  • 631
3 votes
2 answers
10k views

How can I re-instate my admin privileges?

I am running 12.04 LTS. It's a pretty default installation and is the only OS on this machine. I have two users one has administrator rights the other does not. I accidentally removed administrator ...
user85096's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
806 views

block certain dangerous commands?

In my High school there are few computer having Ubuntu 14.04 installed and many students know the Root password, how can I block/disable certain dangerous commands like :- rm -rf / rm -rf * :(){:|...
Ashu_FalcoN's user avatar
  • 2,118
2 votes
3 answers
29k views

Cannot authenticate without a password

The problem can be reproduced as follows: When I remove the password of an administrator account, "Log In without Password", I cannot use that account to authenticate. When I do something that ...
ThePiercingPrince's user avatar
2 votes
5 answers
6k views

What's exactly the point of the sudo command, in terms of security?

This question is actually non Ubuntu-specific. My understanding is that sudo is to prevent non-authorized users from doing administrative and other potentially harmful operations. The premise is that ...
A. N. Other's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
3k views

What is the root user?

If you use sudo su - or sudo -s you will have full root privileges. Is this root user an official user or is it from Canonical? ~$ sudo su - [sudo] password for username: root@lp:~# id uid=0(root) ...
hwez's user avatar
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129 votes
1 answer
145k views

Cannot echo "hello" > x.txt even with sudo? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: sudo & redirect output I'm trying to create a file in /var/www, but even with sudo this fails: user@debVirtual:/var/www$ sudo echo "hello" > f.txt -bash: f.txt: ...
Patryk's user avatar
  • 9,136
74 votes
2 answers
88k views

after upgrade gdb won't attach to process

I just recently upgraded from 10.04 to 11.04 and gdb won't allow me to attach to processes anymore I get the error Attaching to process 10144 Could not attach to process. If your uid matches ...
Andrew Redd's user avatar
  • 2,157
55 votes
4 answers
22k views

How to cancel the currently-applied remaining sudo time-out?

When I've just run sudo, and don't want it to remain active for the normal duration of its time-out, how can I cancel that remaining active time-out? sudo -k kills it for the current terminal ...
Peter.O's user avatar
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37 votes
4 answers
301k views

Cannot connect to X Server when running app with sudo

When I am running some software using sudo command it showing error like cannot connect to X server For example if I run the following command: $ sudo gedit /etc/profile I am getting following ...
Apurba's user avatar
  • 1,428
33 votes
6 answers
9k views

Are user files still private when two sudo users exist in Ubuntu?

I am sharing my personal Ubuntu PC with one of my colleagues. I created another user with a different password (he knows of course) and added it to the sudoer list. Given that there are two sudo ...
Jizhou Huang's user avatar
21 votes
3 answers
61k views

Save an edited file in nano, but no permissions

I edited a file in /etc/ that I want to save, but forgot to open it using sudo. I remember there was a command to save such a file in vi, and want to know if there is any such way to do it in nano? ...
theTuxRacer's user avatar
  • 16.2k
18 votes
3 answers
65k views

Disable sudo permission to user from command line

I have activated root user in ubuntu and want to use ubuntu as server with no DE. For this I want to disable sudo privilege given to first user. How can I do this from command line ? I know I can use ...
sagarchalise's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
23k views

Let normal user restart service with /etc/sudoers

I have a service (kado-demo.service) that a normal user (kado) should be able to restart without entering any password. I created /etc/sudoers.d/user_restart and added kado ALL=NOPASSWD: /bin/...
FooTheBar's user avatar
  • 303
16 votes
2 answers
75k views

Open file or application as root from GUI

Is it possible to open a file or application as root from the GUI? My ideal would be right-clicking on a file or an application and seeing an "Open as Root" choice in the context menu, after which I ...
chrsmrrtt's user avatar
  • 161
13 votes
3 answers
76k views

How to change permission of a drive in an external hard disk?

I had an old laptop. When it got complaint I removed its hard drive and started using it as external hard disk. It has an 80 GB of memory allocation for the windows C drive partition. But now i don't ...
Anandu M Das's user avatar
  • 2,233
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

Can there ever be any problem when using gedit to edit system files with 'sudo -H gedit'?

I am relatively new to Ubuntu, I noticed that in answers on this site, when people suggest editing system files, the command they give is always sudo nano or sudo vi. Because I dislike using terminal ...
shinobody's user avatar
  • 358
10 votes
4 answers
60k views

Error after sudo-ing "sudo: must be setuid root"

On a colleagues computer, everytime I use a sudo command, I get this error: sudo: must be setuid root I tried various things mentioned on the internet, like changing the permissions to 4755 from a ...
theTuxRacer's user avatar
  • 16.2k
9 votes
1 answer
4k views

Why should I use gksudo for Gtk apps instead of sudo? [duplicate]

I read somewhere that people should use gksudo for applications that use the Gtk GUI instead of sudo? What's the reasoning for this?
Thomas Boxley's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
5k views

E:can not open /var/lib/apt/lists/*** ... E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened

I ran sudo apt update and and so on in the terminal, and then I got this error. I can't copy and paste this error code, so I wonder what could be the problem. Is it some permissions issue or something ...
Jonte YH's user avatar
  • 1,943
4 votes
4 answers
17k views

Undo sudo rm -R /*

I stupidly ran sudo rm /* followed by sudo rm -R /* My sites still run, although the vast majority of commands like ls are now broken. Is there a simple way to get data off the server or reverse ...
Andrew Lynch's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
4k views

Is it a good thing to run virt-manager as sudo?

I just installed qemu-kvm and virt-manager. But when i run virt-manager by clicking the icon it is not connecting to kvm. But when i run $ sudo virt-manager KVM connects. i've been told that running ...
user avatar
3 votes
4 answers
14k views

How can user mount an encrypted file container in VeraCrypt?

I have a number of external media with VeraCrypt encrypted file containers and I would like the users to mount and use them without giving root privileges to the users. However at the moment ...
Pawel Debski's user avatar
  • 2,694
3 votes
1 answer
4k views

Executable runs without sudo but not with sudo

I installed xampp in my system in the location /opt/lampp. After that I added the php location to my path variable using export PATH=$PATH:/opt/lampp/bin So when I run php -v using terminal I get ...
Mahendran Sakkarai's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
3k views

terminator: permission denied for sudo

I updated to Ubuntu 20.04. When I use the default terminal, everything is fine. But if try to use terminator, I cannot use sudo. I get permission denied. Again, only when using terminator. How can I ...
cauchi's user avatar
  • 165
2 votes
3 answers
16k views

sudo: /var/lib/sudo/navneet writable by non-owner (040777), should be mode 0700

This error occurs whenever I try to work with sudo. I changed the permissions of /var/ folder to 777 and I think this causes the error. Please help me get back a functional sudo and /var.
navneet's user avatar
  • 21
269 votes
11 answers
1.9m views

How do I start/stop mysql server?

I tried to find in some articles describing how to correctly start & stop mysql server. I found this link: How to start/stop MySql server on Ubuntu 8.04 | Abhi's Blogging World I ran this ...
user471011's user avatar
  • 3,559
79 votes
4 answers
90k views

How to use a python virtualenv with sudo?

I am trying to make a python environment separate from the system one (using virtualenv) in a directory which is not under /home, because I need to use it to build other software that has to be ...
Marco P.'s user avatar
  • 818
59 votes
4 answers
175k 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 ...
Hrish's user avatar
  • 2,343
54 votes
3 answers
97k views

How do I sudo without having to enter my password? [duplicate]

I'm trying to setup sudo without no password but still I get prompted for password, I'm using ubuntu, here is the relevant line from the sudoers configuration file : gandalf ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ...
Gandalf StormCrow's user avatar
52 votes
1 answer
65k views

Use fingerprint authentication not only for login

I'm on 18.04 and have successfully enabled fingerprint login. I would like to use my fingerprint not only to login but if possible also to: Authenticate in the terminal when I do a sudo command ...
Hendrik's user avatar
  • 623
34 votes
2 answers
30k views

/etc/sudoers file corrupted and I can't run 'pkexec visudo' over SSH

Following the instruction here I get: pkexec visudo ==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.freedesktop.policykit.exec === Authentication is needed to run `/usr/sbin/visudo' as the super user Authenticating as: ...
Thomas Ulrich Christiansen's user avatar
32 votes
3 answers
11k views

Why do I need root privileges to umount a drive at the command line, but not in Nautilus? How to change that?

When I insert a thumb drive, media card, or USB hard drive, to unmount it via the command line, I need to use: sudo umount /media/the_device But, I can unmount the device in a file manager like ...
vanden's user avatar
  • 1,380
24 votes
1 answer
4k views

When should I use pkexec and when sudo -i?

I wrote an answer advising the use of sudo -i nautilus. I know that gksu is deprecated, and I was under the impression that sudo -i is how we should run graphical applications as root without killing ...
Zanna's user avatar
  • 70.4k
22 votes
3 answers
14k views

What is the functional difference between sudo su and sudo -i?

Why is one preferred over the other in this example? sudo su echo "options iwlwifi 11n_disable=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf exit Please provide links to Ubuntu documentation.
chili555's user avatar
  • 60.1k
19 votes
2 answers
71k views

sudo: unable to resolve host ubuntu-server [duplicate]

Every time I try to use sudo I get this: sudo: unable to resolve host ubuntu-server My /etc/hosts file: 127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.1.1 ubuntu-server # The following lines are desirable ...
Manfred Van de Waarsenburg's user avatar

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