passwords

[jimnosweat]

I am the only person to ever use this computer and I want to use it without passwords. None. At all. Ever.

Did I mention that I am the only user of this equipment?

[all41]

Prepare for a deluge of reasons why you do not want to do this.

[Mute Ant]

Certainly, the Live Session does this. What is your question?

[jimallyn]

Yes, you did mention that you are the only user of that equipment. Others have asked how to do that, and that information can be found somewhere on the forums, I am told. But I don't know where it is exactly.

Let me start the deluge: that is really inadvisable to run with no password.

[all41]

Welcome to the mint forums.

I am the only person to ever use this computer

This is only true in a physical sense, and not for an online system.
How far are you willing to let a hacker penetrate your system?
If you are ok with outsiders modifying your system files then
'never enter a password' is possible--but I doubt this forum will coach you in
this endeavor.
Think of this as you would a bank account. Also it is in place to protect you from your worst enemy--yourself.
As you grow your expertise you will come to know why this is true--and why every experienced user
recommends this and utilizes a password.

[Fred Barclay]

I'll join in... it's not only inadvisable, it's strongly inadvisable.
Any computer that you connect online isn't yours any longer... it's also the "property" of thousands of script kiddies, a few hundred talented hackers, and a couple of well-funded global actors, all of whom would love nothing more than to break into your machine.
You might hear that not using a password is like leaving your front door unlocked. I beg to differ: not using a password is more like pulling down the entire front wall of your house so anyone can just walk in through multiple access points.

(There's also a rule of thumb that "If you know enough to be safe without a password, you know enough to be able to remove the password without having to ask how." But hopefully by the point you've progressed enough to know how to go without a password, you'll also know enough to understand why this is really not a good idea.)

This is a good intro guide to the reasoning behind passwords on Linux: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=219089

Also, welcome to Mint!

Cheers!
Fred

[all41]

and a couple of well-funded global actors

Fred, I am reporting this security breach to your brethren
edit:
I did not want the levity to detract from the seriousness of the op question, though.
@jimnosweat Please consider the advice offered here.

[Cosmo.]

I am the only person to ever use this computer and I want to use it without passwords. None. At all. Ever.

Did I mention that I am the only user of this equipment?

Tell this to your bank and ask to remove the need to enter a code, if you use your banking card at a terminal or if you do some online banking.

This request is not wise. "None. At all. Ever." See the reply by all41.

You can reduce the need to enter the password, e. g. for logging in, after locking the screen (but why would you lock, if you disable the password request for it?) or suspending the machine.

[Quexos]

/sigh

I would also like to know how to do this, mainly to stop password prompts every time I change...ANYTHING, or want open...ANYTHING. Synaptic? Gparted? Just want to peek at software sources, not even make changes, just to refresh your memory if you added that PPA or not? I don't mind it at login or in the terminal, but CONSTANT nagging all day on nearly everything I do...password...password...password...PASSWORD...PASSWORD!!! STFU !!! I have NEVER seen a password prompt pop up due to a "script kiddie" or anything else messing with my system, EVER. I have never had a virus or any other intrusion and I don't give a damn. I image my drives and if I break them or they get infected, I'll just wipe them out and restore. This constant password nagging has me about >.< close to bailing on Linux completely just from the annoyance of it...and I thought Windows User Account Control was bad...sheesh.

So that said, it's my damned PC, if I want to break it, let me do so. So, can anyone point me/us in the right direction? I have already googled the heck out of it and all I have come up with is to edit the /etc/sudoers file and that does not work. It stops the prompting in the terminal, but that is all as far as I could tell, and that is not the part that annoys me, it's the ones that pop up when I launch damned near anything else that annoy me. Synaptic, LightDM/Login Window, software manager, software sources, refreshing Catfish file search database for crying out loud? Really? etc etc etc.

I's so bad that now when I use even a windows pc I hit control panel, run, whatever, then automatically start typing a password without even looking. Heck, I think I have typed my password in the address bar of Firefox out of muscle memory/habit about 10 times.

EDIT: I found a video about it involving polkit. That plus some more research should square me away. youtube.com/watch?v=IrgJ_fNJGJE
EDIT 2 This still works in Mint 18.2 Xfce (can't confirm others) and I've been using this "tweak" for a month now with no side effects. I absolutely love it when I launch Synaptic, apt-get update, gparted, or whatever and my muscle memory compels me to type a password (STILL!) and then I don't have to!

So, in Mint 18.1 Xfce...Assuming you know all about how this is going to make your computer explode, your dog die, and your woman/man leave you, and you still want to do it...


The How To Part Follows...

1. The sudo part from the terminal: ( replace yourusername with your actual user name and leafpad with your text editor )

Code: Select all

sudo visudo

add this (carefully, a typo can bork your system) at the bottom under #includedir /etc/sudoers.d:

Code: Select all

yourusername ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Ctrl + o (backspace the ".tmp" part off) and press enter (confirm with "Y") to save
Ctrl + x to close the file

2. The polkit part:

Code: Select all

sudo usermod -aG sudo yourusername
sudo -i

**opens an empty file**

Code: Select all

gksudo leafpad /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/disable-passwords.pkla

**paste this into it, save, close**

Code: Select all

[Do anything you want]
Identity=unix-group:sudo
Action=*
ResultActive=yes

3. reboot. done. Enjoy your smoother workflow, much less naggy Linux.

[Fred Barclay]

To view disk info without using a password: lsblk
For software sources: inxi -r

[jimallyn]

This discussion has taken place here many times. In one of them, somebody posted a link to a forums post that tells how to do it. I didn't bookmark it, since I have no intention of ever running without a password. But if you search enough, you will find that information somewhere on the Mint forums.

[Cosmo.]

There is not one day, when I have to enter my password anywhere as often, as the word password is written in this post. And I am running several systems in parallel.

[Hoser Rob]

I am the only person to ever use this computer and I want to use it without passwords. None. At all. Ever.

Did I mention that I am the only user of this equipment?

Are you planning to connect this equipment to the internet? Ever? Then you need a password. Period. End of story. To suggest otherwise is moronic.

[Spearmint2]

Go into the Group & User settings and you can check a choice there to "never require a login password for this user". If you get hacked, you were warned.

[Quexos]

In my case, I actually do want a user login password, just not when I am running updates, and synaptic and the like. If a hacker gets in far enough to be authenticated as my user, none of the rest is going to stop him anyway...and that is why I have my partitions imaged. If anything bad happens, I simply shut down, wipe the drives and restore in like 5 minutes.

[Cosmo.]

In my case, I actually do want a user login password, just not when I am running updates, and synaptic and the like.

But the latter is, what gives the security of the system, the first one is more or less "only" to protect the privacy of your data. If you do not want security, a secure OS is the wrong choice.

[acerimusdux]

If you only want to have to enter a password less frequently, you can do that by extending the timeout (default is 5 min) before you will be reprompted after entering a password.

If you want to be prompted not more than once an hour, for example, add the following to the defaults section of the /etc/sudoers file using visudo:

Code: Select all

Defaults        timestamp_timeout=60

You can also exempt specific commands. Rather than "yourusername ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" you can replace that last ALL with just the commands you want to allow. Example:

Code: Select all

Cmnd_Alias EXEMPT_CMDS = /sbin/poweroff, /sbin/halt, /sbin/reboot, /usr/bin/mintupdate

yourusername ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: EXEMPT_CMDS

This will allow just shutdown, reboot, or running updates without the password.

Should someone induce you to unknowingly run a program that you shouldn't have run, it might make a big difference if that program is itself able to obtain root acess.

[Quexos]

EDIT: Probably really good info for some folks in above post. Thanks for that. In my case I want to have/enter my password for my user at logon and never again and the method I posted further up seems to do just that.

I like playing around with Linux but the "security" drives me nuts. I'm fine with it how I set it up and there is nothing important on this machine. If there was, I would not even think about doing this. And as I said, if anything bad happens, I can restore an image and be all fresh and clean in 5 minutes flat. I am constantly tinkering with my Linux so the password prompts are over the top in my case. If this box was something I set and forget and worked from, then no, I would not be worried about this PW stuff at all. Then it's just a PW once or twice a week during update checks or the like...which I am sure is the intended situation, but I am in a perpetual state of experimenting with things, unlike the average user. So thanks for all the warnings, but no thanks, and hopefully the info will help the next guy like me who would rather sacrifice "security" for ease of use.

[Jim Hauser]

If you make it easy for you to use then you also make it easy for hackers. If you never go online and nobody else uses your machine(s) or if you trust everybody then go ahead and remove the security measures. I used to hate entering passwords at every turn but after three years with no serious problems my hat is off to the experts!

Cheers!

Jim

[Spearmint2]

Here's the rope if you want to hang yourself.

http://www.wikihow.com/Become-Root-in-Linux