I am using Ubuntu/Hardy and have been trying to modify certain files with root access and "su -". When ever I even try to create a file I get this message

I am assuming this is selinux security. How in the heck can I disable this so that I can modify what I need?

If you may post the output of

mount

I might be able to help you.

I figured it out. UBUNTU and other Distros like Mandriva are using the SUDO type of security and not the traditional root access. Here are some benefits of using SUDO:

The benefits of leaving root logins disabled by default include the following:

* The installer has to ask fewer questions.
* Users don't have to remember an extra password (i.e. the root password), which they are likely to forget.
* It avoids the "I can do anything" interactive login by default (e.g. the tendency by users to login as an "Administrator" user in Microsoft Windows systems), you will be prompted for a password before major changes can happen, which should make you think about the consequences of what you are doing.
* Sudo adds a log entry of the command(s) run (In /var/log/auth.log). If you mess up, you can always go back and see what commands were run. It is also nice for auditing.
* Every cracker trying to brute-force their way into your box will know it has an account named root and will try that first. What they don't know is what the usernames of your other users are. Since the root account password is locked, this attack becomes essentially meaningless, since there is no password to crack or guess in the first place.
* Allows easy transfer for admin rights, in a short term or long term period, by adding and removing users from groups, while not compromising the root account.
* sudo can be setup with a much more fine-grained security policy.
* The authentication automatically expires after a short time (which can be set to as little as desired or 0); so if you walk away from the terminal after running commands as root using sudo, you will not be leaving a root terminal open indefinitely.

Check out this link:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

Any extra input would be appriciated.

Well, there is nothing that prevents setting up a root account on Ubuntu (sudo passwd) just as there is nothing that prevents setting up sudo on other distros (su - and then visudo). Personally, I prefer sudo and I am using it on Fedora etc. as well. Even if it weren't any safer, it would still feel more flexible and intuitive.

Since you were not already familiar with sudo, I assume that you haven't heard of things like gksu or gksudo either. Both should be preferred whenever the user needs to launch a graphical rather than a CLI application (e.g. gksudo gedit) - although there appears to be less of a need to make the distinction today. Sudo could have some unexpected side-effects but it's been a while since I heard anyone complain about that.

There are other ways to create files that require administrator permissions, though. If you use a GUI, you could use a combination of nautilus-terminal and nautilus-gksu.

thanks for the input

Aha, this is also an interesting news. I use Kubuntu, but since I am so used to have a log-in-able root, I did this by just making a password for root. So I am not used to a message "read only fs" on a rw fs.

cheers