Hello forum

I am running Gentoo kernel version 2.6.35-r12 (and the latest stage 3 tarball as of this writing) and Gnome 2.30.2 (full install) on my Intel based laptop. I have created myself as a user with administrative privileges but I can't access any of my programs that require root access such as users and groups, and can't even set the time. I keep getting a message that says I (the user) am not allowed to access the system configuration. It treats me as if I were just a regular desktop user, not the administrator. I can launch these programs in a terminal using the gksu command (asking for my root password) but I don't want to use a terminal to launch my programs. If I log into Gnome as root instead of as myself, I have total access to everything.

This is a fresh install with the latest software and I am thinking it might be a new bug that hasn't been discovered by many people yet.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks in advance,
Roy

Hi there,

What do you mean , you created yourself with administrator privileges ? Anyway you can use sudo to launch whatever application you need.Edit the /etc/sudoers file and add your account :

something like
your_username ALL=(ALL) ALL

For more check out here http://www.sudo.ws/

1 members found this post helpful.

Hello lunitix

I made myself the user with administrator privileges by using the following command as root before I installed Gnome:

After I installed Gnome I logged into Gnome as a root user and opened the "users and groups" program under Administration, clicked on Advanced Settings, clicked on the "User Privileges" tab, and put a check mark where it said "Administer the system".

But anyway, I tried putting in the line you suggested in the sudoers file, but it did not work:

I *think* my problem is that I need a password prompt to pop up whenever I try to open a program that needs to be ran as root. That way I can put in my root password and the program should launch. If this is the case, how can I accomplish that?

Or maybe I need to emerge a package.

I'll keep trying.

Any help will still be appreciated.

Roy

Hi,

what in detail did not work?
Try a command like "sudo mount ***"
Good luck and greets

Barry1

What is the supposed/usual effect of checking "Administer the system"?

What I meant with I said "it still did not work" is that after I put that line in the sudoers file (roy ALL=(ALL) ALL), the original problem did not go away, which is I can not open a program that requires root access and I can't even mount any partitions because that requires root access. I get a message saying I do not have administrative privileges.

But I ran the command Barry1 suggested and got this result:

Help is still appreciated,
Roy

mount can be issued by all users, mounting only by root.
And you are root here.
open a terminal as normal user
type
Kind regards

To answer the question as to what the following means:

To me it means a regular user such as myself is able to edit critical system files as root if I use the command "su". It also means I am able to install new packages. It also means I am able to mount partitions as long as I am root. I can indeed do all of this through a terminal window with no problem. But if I try to open a program that requires root privileges from the start menu, I am supposed to get a password prompt asking me to submit my root password but I get no such prompt so I can not open up any programs that require root access simply by selecting it from the start menu. Instead I get an error message saying I do not have administrative privileges.

Help is still appreciated,
Roy

To open a GUI as root, try
Kind regards

1 members found this post helpful.

The above command does indeed work for me and always has, but that is not my problem. What I want to be able to do is start a program from the start menu that requires root access so that a password prompt appears, asking me to put in my root password but I get *no* password prompt but instead I get a message saying I am not the administrator. I need a password prompt.

Help is still appreciated,
Roy

Try to reinstall gnome-keyring.

Kind regards

Hello again,

Re-installing gnome-keyring did not help but below is what did help:

The first thing I did was ran a world update which upgraded nine packages but I can't think of what they were right now. Then I enabled the policykit use flag in Gnome and re-emerged it, which caused polkit-gnome to be installed. I'm not really sure if these steps were necessary, however because the problem persisted after I finished.

I then logged into the Gnome GUI as root since that is the only way I have to make administrative changes besides using the terminal, and I removed the check mark from where it said "give administrative privileges" in the users and groups utility, and then I logged back into Gnome as myself, the regular user. Then I repeated the above step again but this time I put the check mark back in place for the second time, and when I logged back into Gnome the second time as a regular user, everything worked as it should. I guess that check mark does not initialize everything the first time it is put in.

Cheers,
Roy

Update

I discovered what did fix my problem. I was not a member of the stb-admin group. It took me a while to realize it because I had to reboot my system for the changes to take place. Simply logging out and back in did not do it.

All the best,
Roy