Mageia forum

I have a strange thing going on with my Mageia 5 installation. When I am logged in with my regular user account, which does not have root privilege, and available updates are announced, I can log into the updates dialog with my normal user password and apply the updates. If I try to update using the root password, the same dialog fails with a bad password error. So it is clearly using my account to apply the updates.

It took me a while to figure out that the system was allowing me to apply updates as me instead of as root. So I have been running the MCC as root instead and doing the updates there. That was a pain.

Here is my question:

Is it considered a normal default to allow regular users to apply updates? Is that a configurable option? It seems a bit strange. Is this somehow connected into the sudo system? When I try to use sudo, I get slapped

Code: Select all

[brian@localhost log]$ sudo cd security/

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.
    #2) Think before you type.
    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

[sudo] password for brian:
brian is not in the sudoers file.  This incident will be reported.


OH NO! I have been reported to ME!

So how is it that I am allowed to apply system updates if I don't even have sudo privilege? I did not configure any of this; I just have the defaults.

It isn't a big deal because this is a home system, and I am the only one who looks at the updates. But it still seems strange.

I guess I am looking for a pointer to where I can find out how this stuff hangs together.

Thanks in Advance
Banjo
(_)=='=~

banjo wrote:Is it considered a normal default to allow regular users to apply updates? Is that a configurable option? It seems a bit strange. Is this somehow connected into the sudo system?

Yes that is considered the default to allow regular users (which are actively logged in to a desktop session) to apply updates for software that is already installed - which is a good thing in general if you ask me.
Yes that is configurable. http://doc.mageia.org/mcc/5/en/content/draksec.html
Default depends on the security level chosen for the system. Default means normal users can apply updates, that is IIRC.

Although software management needs root password, so you can't install new software as a regular user without configuration.

The authentication that you configured is not related to sudo at all, but to polkit. You may want to read http://www.freedesktop.org/software/pol ... kit.8.html
or http://www.freedesktop.org/software/polkit/docs/latest/

banjo wrote:When I try to use sudo, I get slapped

So how is it that I am allowed to apply system updates if I don't even have sudo privilege? I did not configure any of this; I just have the defaults.

sudo is not configured by default in Mageia. You have to install and configure it explicitly if you want to use it.
https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Configuring_sudo

Thanks for the quick reply. I don't usually use sudo because nobody else who uses this computer cares about any root work, so I just su to root and do things that way.

I will go look at the information and learn some stuff.

Banjo
(_)=='=~