mandrake 9.1 - user priviledges?

Alex

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
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hi,
finally got this thing workin...

when i try to do a lot of things, namely configs, it says i need root priviledges and some things ask for the password (but never remembers even when i check the 'save password' box)... how do i set my main account to be an admin or root or whatever to solve this?

thanks!


ps - first post using Konqueror WHOOOOOOOOOO :p
 

cleverhandle

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2001
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Originally posted by: franguinho
how do i set my main account to be an admin or root or whatever to solve this?
You don't - you enter the password when requested. Otherwise you live your life as a normal user - this is A Good Thing. You don't want every program you start, including X and all the KDE stuff, to run with admin rights.

As for the "save password" box, that sounds like a Mandrake-specific tweak - probably something with PAM. I know Redhat has something like which will cache your credentials for something like 5 minutes before it asks for a password again. Perhaps there's a preference somewhere that will let you tweak the duration. If you really can't be bothered with the password, check out sudo and edit the most common config programs to call "sudo program" rather than just "program". Or, if Mandrake's config programs are PAM-aware (RH's are), use the pam_wheel.so module with the "trust" and "use_uid" options to skip password verification. If you don't understand any of that stuff, you should probably learn it before changing the security settings of the box.

 

Flatline

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2001
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It is inherently a bad idea to make your user account a superuser account; this is actually a worse idea than making a Win2k or XP account an admin account. For example, a superuser could actually make the entire file system read-only (that's bad).
The best thing is to just provide the root password when it is asked for...it may seem like a bit of a pain, but it will help to keep your system secure.
 

Alex

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
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hehhe thanks
nobody will really be usiong this except for me so im not that worried about security...
 

Alex

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
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hehhe thanks
nobody will really be usiong this except for me so im not that worried about security...
 

AnonymouseUser

Diamond Member
May 14, 2003
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Originally posted by: franguinho
hehhe thanks
nobody will really be usiong this except for me so im not that worried about security...
Originally posted by: franguinho
hehhe thanks
nobody will really be usiong this except for me so im not that worried about security...
OMG! Konqueror double-posts! :p

What security setting did you use when installing Mandrake? If you did anything higher than standard then you are asking for more restrictions. You can still change this setting using the Mandrake Control Center (drakconf) if you set it too high.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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nobody will really be usiong this except for me so im not that worried about security...

It's partly to protect you from yourself, one type-o can erase everything on the system, even in-use files.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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I find it better to be able to delete in-use files as root (even by accident if I'm that stupid) than it is to have to reboot or logout of windows to free up an open file Explorer decided to try and preview. =)
 

Alex

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
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uh so what you guys are saying is that there's no way to do it then?
 

Alex

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
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Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Change your UID to 0.

Which is the same thing as running as root.

Yep, and I agree it is a really bad idea. But I'm not going to stop him from doing stupid things.

im not even going to change that. i was just concerned about the hassle of typing in passwords all the time which isnt that big of a deal...
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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im not even going to change that. i was just concerned about the hassle of typing in passwords all the time which isnt that big of a deal...

It's only a hassle for first few days or weeks, after you get everything setup and configured there's no real reason to use root other than for installing updates.