wicd asks for root password

[Forester]

Wow. Now I'm confused. Could you post your /etc/sudoers file for us. ?

I'd also still like to know how you turn off the automatic granting of root access.

[dinosoep]

Wow. Now I'm confused. Could you post your /etc/sudoers file for us. ?

I'd also still like to know how you turn off the automatic granting of root access.

yes, I can see your pretty confused
that code block is my sudoers file, it didn't let me upload the original sudoers file so I pasted the contents.

[Forester]

I asked my question a second time because I didn't realise the first question was on page 2 and thought I must have forgotten to ask it in the first place.

I understand now. Knoppix /etc/sudoers comes with the line:

knoppix ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

which allows you to sudo anything without a password and the wicd desktop icon thing starts up without asking for a password. Changing this to:

knoppix ALL=PASSWD: ALL

is what I thought you must mean when you wrote:

automatic granting of root access has been disabled by me

This means you can still do sudo but you need to enter your password and the wicd desktop icon thing starts up asking for your (i.e. knoppix user not root) password.

Commenting out the line means you can't sudo any commands any more and it does not matter what password you give the wicd desktop icon thing, you can't use it to do anything useful and you may even get a network connection. Hmm. I thought it would fall back to asking for the root password 'cos that was what you said it had done.

So you added an exception to /etc/sudoers allowing wicd to start up properly without a password. Good. Myself I would have done:

knoppix ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/wicd
knoppix ALL=PASSWD: ALL

which means sudo wicd without password and sudo everything else with password.

I actually went to the LXDE menu. Desktop Session Settings (I think) and unchecked the option to start the wicd desktop icon thingy. That way I get no icon, so no password prompt, until (if) I start wicd from the LXDE menu. I still get a network connection. I still get a network connection when I boot into console mode with knoppix 2.

[Forester]

Umm, I'm really confused now. Would it be too much to ask you you to post your /etc/sudoers file ?

Oh, and how did you disable the automatic granting of root access ?

[dinosoep]

oops, my bad. I'm terrible at explaining let alone in English.

to disable Auto granting of permissions:

comment the line out that goes like this: "knoppix ALL=NOPASSWD :ALL" by placing an # before it

To disable root prompt for wicd:

knoppix ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/wicd

my complete sudoers file right now:

#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# Please consider adding local content in /etc/sudoers.d/ instead of
# directly modifying this file.
#
# See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
#
Defaults    env_reset

# Host alias specification

# User alias specification


# Cmnd alias specification

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

#includedir /etc/sudoers.d

#disable wicd root prompt

knoppix ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/wicd

[dinosoep]

forester, I think your missing out on the
%sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
line.
as knoppix is a member of the sudo group it can still do all commands but you need to enter a password.
so it's essentially the same as
knoppix ALL=PASSWD: ALL
at least it's behaving that way

It could be that I'm making a mistake here because to be honest, I don't understand the sudoers file syntax.

[Forester]

forester, I think your missing out on the

%sudo    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

line.

I thought that might come up. My /etc/sudoers contains

# Uncomment to allow members of group sudo to not need a password
# %sudo ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

My sudoers is that from Knoppix 6.4.4 MAXI EN edition but the sudo lines are from Debian Lenny. Is yours derived from the 6.4.4 CD or did you carry it forward from 6.4.3 ? It is closer to the lines to be found in Debian Squeeze.

The extra bit in the Debian Squeeze file reads "Note that later entries override this, so you might need to move it further down". So, I revise my last post to:

knoppix ALL=PASSWD: ALL
knoppix ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/wicd

My knoppix user is a member of the sudo group, so I too could use the default rule you use. I wonder what we'll find in 6.4.6 when it arrives.