Well I know how bad of a habit it is to run as root, and I should be using sudo insted. So i created a new user, and everything runs fine but when it comes to using anything related with the network, like ettercap, ethereal, loading my ipw2200 drivers, or a program to select wireless AP everyone of those requires to you to be root in order to run them.

So how do I setup my sudoers file so I can run those? I think I have to do somthing with Cmnd_Aliases but i am seeing so many different things, like NETWORK and I am quite confused how to use this command.

Just a little background, I have slack 10.2 installed on my laptop and I am the only user. I use the laptop for wardriving with GPS, also general things like browsing web, school, gpsdrive and such. So judging by that is SUDO the best way to setup my system?

Thanks
Archer36

Dont add another layer to SW. Get used to using su and pw from terminal or command prompt when they are needed. Once network and wifi are config'd you should not need to be root except on rare occasions. You may want to review /etc/group to add user(your username) to pertinent groups.
man sudo is available if you insist.

Im not sure I completly understand, if I dont run ettercap, or ethereal from su or root they will not work because it does not have access to ethX interfaces.

Thanks

Hi

If certain programs (like ethereal) need to be run as root, you can do this

user@host:~$ kdesu ethereal

user@host:~$ kdesu ettercap -G (haven't tried it but I think it should work)

Anyway some programs like ettercap or nmap prefer the command line. It does work for ethereal (and I think the package from www.linuxpackages.net does it this way)

Good luck.

Yea I have been using kdesu for some of the apps is this a form of su?

kdesu is su just for gui apps.

sudo is a "form" of su that limits what you can do with su. so you have to put in the sudo.conf file what commands can be used, if the command isnt allowed in the sudo.conf file you cant run it. if you use su you actually switch to that user. it depends on your environment which is better if you have admins that you dont fully trust because of security reasons or simple typos sudo might be better, but sudo is a lot more time consuming and difficult to setup. whereas su is automatically setup because it doesnt have a setup but you give full rights as the person that su is going to.

you can su to other users to
ex:
su bob
su adm
su #become root

you can do the same with sudo though and restrict what commands are allowed to be run. you can setup sudo so that some commands that require root access to run without passwords. sudo is very powerful but "can be" dangerous if you allow access to commands like sh, because you can do anything with a shell. thats almost like giving access to su.

man sudo
man su

lestoil sudo isnt anymore sw then su ... you just have to becareful what you do with it and even if sudo is setup wrong its more secure then giving access to su, until its to late.

Ok been playing around with it a bit, now when loading my wlan drivers it wants to use rmmod, insmod, and modprobe. Now should I add /sbin to my user's path? ATM i just put two symbolic links in /usr/local/bin but was not sure what I should do.

Thanks

if you edit your PATH your makeing a system wide change for 1 script ... it doesnt really matter but its not to smart either. its like changing all 4 tires on your car cause 1 of them gets a nail in it.

why dont you edit the script so instead of useing:
modprobe <somemodule> #(you would need to do this for insmod and rmmod in the script too)

it uses instead:
/sbin/modprobe <somemodule> #(insmod and rmmod too)

but the symbollic links would work too.