gksu with multiple users

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2
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muffin

gksu with multiple users

Post by muffin »

Hello,

I'm having trouble setting up a new user with full administrative rights. (This is on a fresh install of LMDE 201303 Cinnamon 64-bit.) The user is a member of the sudo and adm groups.

The problem seems to boil down to the fact that gksudo and sudo ask for the user's password (which works fine), but gksu asks for "the administrator password" and only works with the password of user 1000. This means that...
- the first user, uid 1000, can run everything just fine.
- the new user, uid 1001, CAN use sudo and gksudo to escalate privileges, eg. within a terminal. All of these work fine, asking for the user's password:

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$ sudo su
$ sudo gufw
$ gksudo gufw
- BUT, the new user CANNOT run Software Manager or Root Terminal (which is called with gksu). To prove that it's gksu/gksudo that's the problem, this:

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$ gksu gufw
...asks for "the administrative password", but I would expect it to ask for the user's password. Especially as gksudo is symlinked to gksu!

What am I missing? Is there any way to get gksu to accept the new user's password, or else can I edit the Cinnamon menu to call Software Manager with gksudo instead? (I guess as a followup question - how do I edit the 'Administration' sub-menu, as it doesn't show up if I right-click Menu > Edit Menu?)

Thanks in advance....

- m
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
renatov

Re: gksu with multiple users

Post by renatov »

Is the user in sudo group and is /etc/sudoers properly configured to concede privilege to all users in sudo's group? If yes, I know it's not a definitive sollution, but other users will be able to run administrative programs using sudo command in terminal - at least while you manage to fix the problem. For example:

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$ sudo synaptic
muffin

Re: gksu with multiple users

Post by muffin »

Thanks for your post renatov; sudo is configured correctly (and the user can sudo as you suggest), but it's just gksu that behaves differently.

The trouble is I need a desktop which I can distribute to people a fair distance away, which they can administer without my support - so whilst the workaround would be ok for a single-user PC, it doesn't really work in my case. That means I either need gksu to work properly and accept the *user* password, OR edit the menu to call mintinstall using gksudo instead. But I don't seem to be able to do either of those with LMDE.

I can't replicate the issue on the main, LTS edition (Maya MATE, haven't had a chance to test Nadia or Cinnamon yet), so I'm guessing this is LMDE-specific behaviour...
DrHu

Re: gksu with multiple users

Post by DrHu »

Ok, so what comes immediately to mind is an edit of the /etc/sudoers file to include permission to run that program for those other users
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sudoers
--perhaps aliases, command or other! will manage it
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