Prior to 10.10 if I enter my password to gain administrative permissions, for example to check for updates in Update Manager, the escalated permissions remain in effect for a period of time. If I close out of Update Manager and invoke the Synaptic Package Manager within a couple of minutes I am not asked for my password.

Does anyone know if the was SUPPOSED to change in 10.10? I have reproduced the phenomenon in both the 32 and 64 bit versions of 10.10.

TIA,

Ken

p.s. I just found that if I have updates running - obviously my account has escalated permissions - I am again prompted for a password for example if I try to add a user account. Not sure if this is BAD but it is rather annoying after being spoiled from previous versions.

p.p.s. Yes I realize that I do not need escalated permissions in Meerkat to CHECK for updates - that was just an example as that is what I am doing at the moment on both versions.

I assume you are using sudo; and you have not enabled the root account, which is not recommended in Ubuntu.

I do all package management tasks in the terminal with apt-get. After entering your password sudo will continue to work for about 15 minutes without asking for your password again, more or less.
If I open Synaptic or Update Manager within that 15 minutes however, I am again prompted for my password. It seems that the GUI programs will ask for your password even if you have just entered your password in the terminal a moment ago. This has been the case for as long as I remember; and I started using Ubuntu with version 4.10.
If I run Update Manager, and then close it and run Synaptic, I am again prompted for my password.
I am not sure if this is a recent change, since I always use the terminal for these tasks. I am running Xubuntu 10.10.

In any case, you should not regard being prompted for your password as "annoying". Remember, security and convenience always compete. You can have one or the other, but not both. This is especially true if you regard being prompted for a password as "annoying".

Thanks tommcd. As I mentioned this seems to be a change in 10.10. When I first found that Ubuntu was caching credentials I was rather concerned. Then, as I said, I got lazy and expected it to happen

Ken