On Sunday 12 July 2009 10:15:19 Alan Pope wrote:
> Hi Tim.
>
> 2009/7/12 Tim <xendistar@???>:
> > I am setting up an old laptop for my son which is running xubuntu 9.04. I
> > don't want him to be able to "sudo" so I set a password for su, I typed
> >
> > sudo passwd
>
> That's not how I would do it. I'd remove him from the admin group -
> which is how he inherited sudo rights in the first place. This would
> have the effect that others could sudo but he could not.
>
> > I then typed in a password which was accepted, now if I type su in a
> > terminal screen it asks for the above password and root access is
> > obtained. But if as a normal users if go into add\remove (programs) it
> > will ask for a password for the users and by entering the users password
> > it gives me root access, if I try the su (root) password I setup it gets
> > rejected. How can I change this??
>
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo#Enabling%20the%20root%20account
>
> I think that's about the 5th time I've linked to that page on this
> list :) Maybe we should have a FAQ :)
>
> Cheers,
> Al.
Hi AL
I did look on the net but found a lot of conflicting advice and not the link you
gave.
I followed the instruction in the link but it still does not work (or rather it
does not give the desired affects). If I go to add\remove programs and select a
program to remove, it pop up and ask me to enter the root password, I enter the
password, it goes away and comes back a couple of seconds later saying wrong
password, I renter the password and it then just fades the background and sits
there doing nothing until I click the cancel button.
I found the file Martin mentioned although I am not sure what\or if I should
edit it (the header in the file suggests I don't). I did find how to stop the
user from being able to administer the system in user settings (now that was
fun when you disable that and then can't get back in!!)
At the moment the laptop has two users, my son and root, I have reverted back to
giving my son account rights to administers the system. I did try logging in as
root but It won't let me.
I can work a round this by setting myself up as a third users with rights to
administer the system and remove those rights from my sons account, but I just
think I should be able to revert to a old fashioned user and root access (or
maybe not as the case is proving)??
Tim
