Uber administrative permissions?

[Jaredvcxz]

How do I get my account to have uber admin/root privileges in fedora?

[jayd512]

You'll have to edit your /etc/sudoers file.
This should help: Personal Fedora 10 Installation Guide

[meton_magis]

or if your're like me and CAN'T STAND SUDO, just use
su -
and enter your root password. You should never give your user account "uber admin" privileges. You should only use your root permisions when you absolutely need them, and no longer.

the sudo that jayd mentioned doesn't really give your account "uber admin privileges" but rather it alows you to prefix commands with sudo, in which it runs that process with elevated permisions, but uses your own user's password instead of root's ( hence, why I can't stand sudo, it is an unnecisary security risk IMO. ) If you want to emulate the behavior of running 1 command with elevated permisions (which I believe to be a very good thing, if you only have 1 command to run) you can use
su - -c "command"
and enter the root password.

[jayd512]

( hence, why I can't stand sudo, it is an unnecessary security risk IMO. )

Me neither, to be perfectly honest. I've never edited the 'sudoers' file, personally. I like to keep things separate.
But that's all up to the OP.

[Jaredvcxz]

Yeah, I know the risks, but I get annoyed at all these failed permission errors every time I try to do things.

[sed_addictive]

using sudo is more secured than using su

[techieMoe]

Yeah, I know the risks, but I get annoyed at all these failed permission errors every time I try to do things.

What are you trying to do? It's a very, very bad idea to run as a regular user with root privileges, and I can't for the life of me think of a valid reason why you would need this.

[meton_magis]

using sudo is more secured than using su

In your opinion. There is no factual basis for your statement, and it depends on your environment which is "more" secure. The fact that you require 2 passwords to get root access with no sudo, as opposed to needing only 1 in yours, does away with your argument.

I can only assume he is running linux as a single user environment for a desktop, where sudo does not have any benefit (who cares if sudo logs commands, if he is the only user. if he is the admin, who does he have to hide the root password from? )

Having a strict split of regular user, and root is in my opinion FAR more important than anything that sudo can provide. So it is in your opinion that it is more secured, but that argument alone does not make it so.

[bigtomrodney]

Yeah, I know the risks, but I get annoyed at all these failed permission errors every time I try to do things.

Well you can do things right, or you can take the lazy way out. The risks aren't only security. By running as root you can be giving something as simple as a web browser the same priority as a system service. Just remember that next time Flash craps out on you, it'll likely take your X server and a couple of other system services with it.

So in short, I don't think you do know the risks. If you're getting permissions errors it's because you're doing something wrong, or at least don't know how to make it right.

In your opinion. There is no factual basis for your statement, and it depends on your environment which is "more" secure. The fact that you require 2 passwords to get root access with no sudo, as opposed to needing only 1 in yours, does away with your argument.

There's certainly a debate on that one and both have their merits. I won't debate it here but there are two things I'd just like to throw in on that

• sudo can be configured to run with either the user's password or root password
• When using sudo you are required to make an informed decision to run a command as root. You must prefix each command with sudo.

The latter takes away the risk of staying logged in as root for the menial interim tasks that really don't need root privileges and also of forgetting that you are logged in as root. Also, in multi administrator systems it prevents you having to pass out the root command.

Something you may all be interested in though, is if you actually do need a root shell you can use sudo interactively

sudo -i

This is the equivalent of running

su -

[meton_magis]

There's certainly a debate on that one and both have their merits. I won't debate it here but there are two things I'd just like to throw in on that

• sudo can be configured to run with either the user's password or root password
• When using sudo you are required to make an informed decision to run a command as root. You must prefix each command with sudo.

The latter takes away the risk of staying logged in as root for the menial interim tasks that really don't need root privileges and also of forgetting that you are logged in as root. Also, in multi administrator systems it prevents you having to pass out the root command.

Something you may all be interested in though, is if you actually do need a root shell you can use sudo interactively

sudo -i

This is the equivalent of running

su -

I do see the advantages you put, but as I mentioned, i was assuming that this was a single user desktop environment (no root password to hand out, as he KNOWS it allready.) Also, I am a strong believer in running 1 command only as root, but for that I use `su - -c "command"` not sudo. sudo for a desktop is just adding 1 more application that can introduce vulnerabilities that do not need to exist.

I will admit I shouldn't assume as much as I did, but I was considering it ridiculous that he would ask that question in a multi user environment.

I didn't know that sudo can be configured to use root password, though in that instance, what is the point, it is just replicating the behavior of su, and I could just alias it to su - -c, and not introduce another program with another configuration, that I could introduce vulnerabilities to.