Re: [system-tools] Allowing user to run system tools with entering root password

[Phil Bull <philbull gmail com>]

Hi Rodrique,

I don't think that this is the best list for your question (a support
list for your distro would probably be more appropriate), but I've tried
to answer below anyway.

On Thu, 2009-07-23 at 15:52 -0400, Rodrique Heron wrote:
> I’m not sure if this is the right list for this, so please redirect me
> to the correct list if that’s the case.

> Basically I want to know how I can give users Admin rights over their
> desktops so that they don’t have to know roots password to run
> programs from”Sytem” menu. For example the system-config-display
> requires root’s password: 
> 
> $ system-config-display
> 
> You are attempting to run "system-config-display" which requires
> administrative
> 
> privileges, but more information is needed in order to do so.
> 
> Password for root

You can set up "sudo" [1] on your system (sudo is used by default in
Ubuntu). This allows normal users to temporarily gain root privileges by
typing in their own password, not the root password.

It's a bad idea to give regular users administrative privileges, as it
frequently leads to problems with security and people messing with
important system files. Sudo allows you to restrict which commands
people can run with administrative privileges, but you should still take
care.

Thanks,

Phil

[1] - http://www.gratisoft.us/sudo/

-- 
Phil Bull
https://launchpad.net/people/philbull