Questions related to the sudo command that allows users to run programs with the privileges of a different user (normally the root user).

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Error while SUDOing

I am facing a issue. When I try to do sudo on my terminal I get: sudo: must be setuid root I googled for the problem and did as the suggestions like setting permission of sudo but they were already ...
3
votes
1answer
64 views

Where are unauthorized sudo attempts reported to

Where are unauthorized sudo attempts reported to? When you attempt to use sudo, and are not allowed, a message says that the attempt will be reported. Is this only reported in var/log/auth.log ? or ...
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2answers
63 views

Security practice regarding users

Please understand that I've migrated to a Ubuntu Desktop from Win7 some months ago and while I have been reading about sudoers and Linux in general my understanding is still limited. This is how I ...
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2answers
365 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 ...
3
votes
1answer
344 views

How do I allow a standard user to update the kernel modules for VMware?

I've set up VMWare Player for my wife. Every once in a while (notably after a kernel update), the VMWare Player needs to be compiled into the kernel. My spouse does not have su- activated (if anybody ...
3
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1answer
7k views

No password prompt at sudo command

Whenever I issue command sudo apt-get install ** it does not ask for password, not in my admin user too. How to make it prompt for password? My sudoer : ubuntu:~$ sudo cat /etc/sudoers # # This ...
3
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6answers
7k views

Password not working for sudo (“Authentication failure”)

Before I mention anything further, DO NOT give me a response saying that terminal won't show password input. I'm AWARE of that. I'm typing my user password in (not a capslock issue), and for some ...
3
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1answer
2k views

sudo does not ask for password

Whenever I issue command sudo apt-get install foo it does not ask for password. is it because of user groups? How to make it prompt for password? Edit: My sudoers file apple@Ascension:~$ sudo cat ...
3
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1answer
914 views

Terminal problems entering password

Every time I try to enable shell theme extension or anything in general in Terminal it asks me for a password but won't accept it.
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1answer
490 views

Sudo permissions error

I am getting the following error: sudo: unable to resolve host XXX sudo: /etc/sudoers is mode 0666, should be 0440 Segmentation fault To start xampp, I typed sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start Please ...
3
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2answers
300 views

How to set root proxy settings via command line?

I am using fabric to deploy a project and have run into an issue: fabric does not currently (as far as I'm aware) have the ability to specify options to it sudo command, therefore I cannot use sudo ...
3
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1answer
42 views

Desktop environment agnostic method for prompting the user for a password?

In Gnome, there is gksudo. In KDE, there is kdesudo. Is there a command that can be run on any desktop environment that will prompt the user for the root password and then run a command?
3
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1answer
474 views

apt-get could not open lock file

I am trying to get an nfs client running on a Sheeva-plug running debian 2.6.22. The host is Ubuntu 12.04 and claims (from showmount -e) to be exporting the desired directory. There is no showmount ...
3
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1answer
674 views

Authentication required to Mount a Device

Today I came across a very strange message when today i double click the drive WHICH HAS NTFS FORMAT it give me this message THAT AUTHENTICATION IS REQUIRED TO MOUNT A DEVICE I know with root user ...
3
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2answers
385 views

how to restore boot folder?

No laughing! I just did sudo rm -vr /boot/*. Is there a way to restore the content? Just to clarify why I would do this: I have a SD-card with a boot-partition mounted at /media/boot that I wanted ...
3
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2answers
2k views

Some programs not found when used with sudo

I just installed go to /usr/local/go, and in ~/.bashrc added this line: export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin Now go works from the command line, but sudo go gives me: $ sudo go sudo: go: command ...
3
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2answers
401 views

Enter password only once for script making many sudo calls

I am writing a script to download build and install a bunch of packages. Building sometimes takes a while, and installing requires root priviledges: make; sudo make install What happens alot is that ...
3
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2answers
27k views

How do I login as root?

I want to login as root, but when I enter sudo -s and enter password, this message is shown: "you are not in sudoers file", and when I enter su and enter password, this is shown: ...
3
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1answer
299 views

Why does my machine suddenly not allow the “sudo” command?

I was working on my machine. I did some Clamav Virus definition updates, ran clamav and everything worked fine using sudo. Suddenly afterwards though, my machine started saying that sudo: no valid ...
3
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1answer
708 views

Permission denied on /dev/xvdf despite sudo?

I'm trying to get a stream off port 9999 and write to /dev/xvdf. I'm using Amazon EC2 with the Ubuntu 11.10 server image. By default I log in as 'ubuntu' which has sudo privileges. However, when I run ...
3
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1answer
984 views

Ubuntu Server Automatically Insert Password Using Python3

I'm trying to create a small python3 program for my friend which will install and configure the nessarcary set-up for his Ubuntu Server. I want him to be able to start the program, give some basic ...
3
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1answer
187 views

Can't reboot system using ssh

I am running Ubuntu Server 12.04 and I would like to reboot my system. I ssh into it fine, but when I run sudo reboot I get the following error -bash: /usr/bin/sudo: Input/output error. It is at this ...
3
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1answer
45 views

Can't see anything I type except on internet, can't download anything, can't even open software center.

If I do anything with sudo terminal says: E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem. This all started after i canceled the 11 upgrade during ...
3
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2answers
98 views

Is it possible to change a program's privileges while running?

Is it possible to start a program normally, and then later give it root or some other level of permission without restarting it?
3
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2answers
589 views

Degrading administrative privilege to standard with single admin user account

I recently met with a severe issue with user accounts. In my system, there is only administrator user named vivek. I added another user with name vivi and changed its privilege to administrator. After ...
3
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1answer
324 views

What causes “pam_unix … conversation failed” in auth.log

There are thousands of entries in my auth.log like this: sudo: pam_unix(sudo:auth): conversation failed What causes these to occur? I'd like to fix whatever it is but I'm a bit mystified as to ...
3
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2answers
859 views

how can a bash file run without needing to enter sudo pass-phrase manually?

I write a bash file thus: #!/bin/bash echo 1000 |sudo tee /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness (that changes the screen's brightness) I need it to run at startup, but because ...
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2answers
1k views

Can't Change Permissions of Files in Home Folder without Sudo

For some reason, I can't chmod +x files that are right in my home folder without prepending sudo to the command. One recent example: I have a file named monitor-off.sh in ~/Documents. I tried to use ...
2
votes
2answers
3k 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 ...
2
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3answers
386 views

how to recover from mounting /usr/ nosuid

I was able to move /usrto an external harddrive. In fstab I mistakenly mounted the drive with nosuid. Now I can't use sudo or su. I can't edit the fstab entry. When I manage to open it I can't do so ...
2
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4answers
1k views

Why does the sudo command not work in chroot?

I just installed a 32-bit chroot to run on my 64-bit system. In the chroot environment, the sudo command doesn't work, it says sudo: command not found Also, when I try the su root command, my ...
2
votes
4answers
191 views

“sudo bash” ignoring read-only permission of .bash_history file

This problem is in an up-to-date 12.04, and seems to have started recently. I have my .bash_history file set to read only. Lately I've noticed that despite this the file is being modified ! Here's ...
2
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1answer
130 views

How do I create another user?

I am new to Ubuntu. On login only my single user with guest is displayed. Is it possible to show multiple user names including admin user? sudo sh -c 'echo "greeter-show-manual-login=true" >> ...
2
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2answers
2k views

How to repair “sudo: /etc/sudoers is mode 0640, should be 0440?”

Why might sudo chmod -R a+w * cause sudo: /etc/sudoers is mode 0640, should be 0440 sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting and how might it be made to work?
2
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1answer
6k views

How to uninstall Ubuntu Software Center in 11.10? [duplicate]

I am trying to uninstall software center for ubuntu oneric using the command sudo apt-get remove software center and get this as result Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree ...
2
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2answers
169 views

Looking for a log thats bound to sudo

I've issued the commands sudo su, and sudo sh. Can you please tell me if there are logs associated with sudo, and where I could find them?
2
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2answers
440 views

Lost my root access and unable to install any software or any other priviliged operations

I have been using Precise Pangolin and I am into a problem now :( I was trying to add my current user to the group vboxusers.. So I used the command, sudo usermod -G vboxusers myusername And it ...
2
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2answers
484 views

Can't access any functions after chown command

I am not being to access any functions in my desktop and I don't have an OS besides Ubuntu and I am new to Ubuntu. I think I rebooted my computer thinking that Google Chrome crashed. I opened Google ...
2
votes
2answers
216 views

Does sudo really make you root for a while?

On Ubuntu, in what kind of situations, if any, running a command as a non-root to access a file/folder or create/delete a file/folder using sudo may result in "permission denied" while running the ...
2
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1answer
2k views

Remove password attempt at sudo 12.10

I just installed Quantal Quetzal and when I type sudo in the terminal it asks for the password. Before upgrading, I changed something in the file, and it wouldn’t ask for passwords. I have already ...
2
votes
1answer
269 views

My only account is not in the sudo group

I installed Ubuntu 11.10 with a username fooname. And then I did something like sudo usermod -G vboxsf fooname Then, guess what: no one is a sudoer. How can fooname be back as a sudoer? In ...
2
votes
1answer
160 views

How to run a command as a user whose login is disabled?

I am trying to use the su command to run an application as another user In this case I am trying to run irssi blah@ubuntu: su - [username] irssi (enter password) blah@ubuntu: (nothing happens) ...
2
votes
1answer
2k views

Can I add myself to group `root'?

$ id uid=1000(kev) gid=1000(kev) groups=1000(kev),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),46(plugdev),109(lpadmin),124(sambashare) $ ls -l /etc/sudoers -r--r----- 1 root root 723 Jan 31 2012 /etc/sudoers ...
2
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3answers
111 views

How to copy all .sol files in a system to a specific folder

I want to copy all the files that I have in the system with extension sol to the specific folder can you please help me. I tried sudo cp / *.sol ~/SOL/ but it doesn't work UPDATED: I tried to follow ...
2
votes
1answer
82 views

How do I replace the following missing files? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How do I figure out what package something is in without resorting to Google? I am getting the following errors with software center file does not exist: ...
2
votes
3answers
4k views

'sudo' not working after changing the permissions of '/usr' directory

Recently I had to change the folder permissions of /usr folder. Now the whole sudo is not working. If I try to update my system using this command: sudo apt-get update I get the following message: ...
2
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2answers
337 views

rm -i alias not working with sudo as root

I have noticed in all my Ubuntu servers the alias rm -i is ignored when you run sudo rm * as root. Is there something in sudo that is causing this behavior? I know you don't need to use sudo when you ...
2
votes
1answer
1k views

locked out of sudo while knowing my password

I have one admin account and recently I have accidentally added myself to a single group (usermod -G without -a). So, I am not in the sudoers file anymore. However, root is not loginable by default on ...
2
votes
2answers
106 views

How can gain root access whilst logged into a normal account?

I've set up an ubuntu computer for my sisters. There is the admin account which only I can access and there are two normal accounts. Occasionally I'm going to be called upon to install an extra ...
2
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3answers
130 views

Ways to run Nautilus with elevated privileges [duplicate]

What are the differences between the following ways to run Nautilus with elevated privileges: a) sudo nautilus b) gksu nautilus c) gksudo nautilus Which should I use?

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