I have myself and my kids set up on my laptop. When I was logged in as one of my kids I needed to configure the wireless connection as it was not working when I logged in as her. I tried to go into admin mode in the KDE System Settings. When it would ask for the password I typed in mine and it would not except it. I opened a terminal and su to me and tried again, I just got an su error dialog popup. Can I set up my kids accounts to be able to use MY password for admin tasks? I do not want them to be able to use theirs, but I would like to use mine if I am logged in as them if need be.

Thanks,
Todd

If you hit [ctrl]+[alt]+[F1-6] from X you can open a console and sign in as yourself, and [alt]+[F7] to get back into X. What admin tasks do you need to perform? I don't think there is any safe way to make it "easy" for them to use your account. You can't "setuid" a script, and it would be unsafe to have a "setuid" program that doesn't perform verification.
ta0kira

For some reason the wireless NIC was not enabled when I logged into my daughter's account. I needed root privileges to do this and I could not figure out how to get them. I am not quite getting the sudo thing. I would like to just type in the 'root' password when logged in as whomever to do admin type work. Guess I need to figure this out

Thanks,
Todd

Using sudo means that you don't need to know the root password. Sudo allows you to act as admin using your own account and password.

If you wish to perform an admin task while logged in as your daughter, do and you will be able to do whatever. If you are logged in as you, put in your own password, of course.

Lastly, check out

I realize that I can put my daughter in the sudoers file and then they can perform root type commands by using their password; however, I do not want to give my 11 year old admin access (for obvious reasons). Sometimes the need pops up when I need to do an admin task when my daughter is logged in and as I do not want to give her root access I was wondering if I could somehow set it up to allow her account root access but only if she uses my password (which she does not know). That way I can do admin tasks while she is logged in. Is this even possible? Does it even make sense?

Thanks

Please note that I do not know very much about sudo, but I am fairly certain that you can enable certain commands. Can't you identify what administrative tasks would be needed while in your daughter's account, and just add those commands to sudo, such as enabling your wireless card? It would allow her to start the card without giving her access to the entire system.

Why not simply enable the root account?
sudo passwd root

Then you can use su to become root--just like any normal distro.

The ONLY flaw in Ubuntu--root disabled by default

I have been having a problem similar to this, only when I type sudo <cmd> (i.e sudo apt-get install yada) it asks for my user (not root) password. When I type that in, it tells me "yada is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported." My question is, HOW do I put yada in the sudoers file?

Generally on most distributions using sudo, the first user created during installation will have sudo rights. You can add other users to the sudoers list by editing the list. Instructions at the site below as well as numerous other sites.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/how-to-...-sudoers-list/

The problem you are going to have is that you will need to edit the file with root privileges so you will need the password for a user that has sudo privileges. Do you have other users? You should be able to do it from a Live CD.[COLOR="Silver"]

Highly recommend to read here:

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

I know you are NOT going to believe this, but I went to the main account, used the sudo adduser <username> sudo command, I got CONFIRMATION that <username> had indeed been added, then went back to my user, tried to sudo, and got the same error.

I tried both username's password, and root password. Root password says not user's password. User's password says "<username> is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported."

Strangely enough, if I go to the Main User and try to auth as root, I even get the Auth Failed error, and I KNOW I am using the correct password there.

Anyway, thank you for trying to help me in this matter.

Oh, btw, I am using Precise Pangolin, 12.04 LTS

Do you mean that nobody can use sudo now? Does this include you as well??
If so, then see this to fix a broken sudo: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/fixsudo

You may be able to use the Case 1A listed there to add your daughter to the sudo file.
The Case 1B listed there should be able to fix your ability to sudo if that is broken.

I don't understand what you mean by "root password." There is no root password in Ubuntu; the root account is locked.

tommcd's link is highly recommended: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/fixsudo

I manage several Fedora 16 boxes that is used by several software developers. The developers need to restart particular servers, apache, tomcat, and jboss, fairly frequently. So what I so is have group setup in sudoers file that can run the set of commands needed by the developer, and only that set of commands. Any user who belongs to that group can restart the servers. This way I give folks just enough admin rights to get their job done and not enough to screw up the server environment.

Did you log out as <username> and then log back in, after adding the group and before trying sudo? The list of sudoers in RAM is only updated at login time, so changes made in a session won't take effect until after the next login.

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