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Questions tagged [privileges]

Privilege grants the ability to carry out some action, such as deleting, modifying or executing a file. Some actions require elevated or root privileges. Privileges are effectively defined by the file system permissions that control access to files for owners, group owners, and others.

enter image description here

rwx are attributes [r]ead | [w]rite | e[x]ecute

These privileges can be either given/added + or taken away -

There are three groups of users:

  • Owner - u
  • Group - g
  • Others - o

a refers to all three groups

98 questions
179
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4 answers

How do I grant sudo privileges to an existing user?

I want to grant a newly created user sudo privileges in Ubuntu. I tried sudo adduser hduser admin but it says no admin group exists. How can I do it?
saket
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151
votes
1 answer

Give user write access to folder

How do i give the user 'testuser' write privileges on the folder: /var/www/test/public_html
RSM
  • 1,635
66
votes
6 answers

Why do we need to be root in terminal for shutdown and restart?

When we install/remove/update packages or make any changes which require administrative privileges we are prompted for the password of admin user who has the sudo privileges - this happens both via GUI and terminal. However, if we try to shutdown…
Aditya
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44
votes
5 answers

How to NOT become a root user? Are administrators root?

I installed Ubuntu on my PC. To log in, I use the username and password I created during installation. Does this mean I am a root user? If yes, then how do I become non-root? It looks like non-root user is more secure than admin user.
FirstName LastName
  • 513
18
votes
3 answers

Disable sudo permission to user from command line

I have activated root user in ubuntu and want to use ubuntu as server with no DE. For this I want to disable sudo privilege given to first user. How can I do this from command line ? I know I can use a GUI but how to do it from command line ?
sagarchalise
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17
votes
1 answer

Peer authentication failed for user with all privileges in Postgres 9.5

I want to create a user who only has access to a specified database. However, it should have all permission. I use Postgresql 9.5 on Ubuntu 14.04. So first of all, I create a new user: $createuser --interactive joe Shall the new role be a…
Qeychon
  • 285
17
votes
1 answer

"Admin" user automatically has sudo privileges

I added a user named "admin" to my Ubuntu 14.04LTS server, using adduser. I'm used to having to add a user to the /etc/sudoers file when adding a new user that needs sudo privileges, but this time I didn't. It doesn't appear the 'admin' user…
trpt4him
  • 273
15
votes
9 answers

Mount Flashdrive: Not Authorized to perform operation

At first this issue seemed to be related solely to usb's. When I insert a USB i get "Unable to mount xGb volume Not Authorized to perform operation" Previously it would prompt for root password to mount. Upon closer examination this appears to be…
EHM
  • 161
15
votes
2 answers

How can I get an interactive shell as another non-root user?

I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS server, with the default security model (root locked, using sudo to elevate privileges). I occasionally enjoy using sudo -i when I'll need to run a series of commands with elevated privileges, or when I need to rummage…
Calrion
  • 397
14
votes
1 answer

How to configure pkexec to not ask for password?

I have a GUI application that needs to call a daemon (written in Python) with superuser privileges. I would like to do this without prompting the user for a password. Since the daemon is a script, I can't set the SUID bit directly. I could write a…
Chinmay Kanchi
  • 921
13
votes
5 answers

How to create a user with root privileges in bash?

I have run the following commands: sudo groupadd -r testgroup sudo useradd -g testgroup -M -r testuser Notice the -r option, which according to the man page: -r     Create a system account. Assuming I have a user account with root privileges,…
Nathan Osman
  • 32,495
11
votes
8 answers

sudo mysqldump : Permission denied

I am trying to run sudo mysqldump with user account but I get : Permission denied message If I switch to sudo su then it works. The question is why sudo gives permission denied? should i give some other privileges on my user account?
Kapa
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10
votes
3 answers

How can I make everything just assume I'm running as the superuser?

Is there a way I can make things just assume that when I run them I am running them as a privileged administrator (AKA root)? I know it could be dangerous and all, but its a risk I'm willing to take in the name of convenience.
Jon
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9
votes
4 answers

How can I modify a file that is owned by root?

I installed a program that runs in a browser. I would like to change the background picture it puts up on the screen or modify the existing one. The properties for that file tell me that it is owned by root. I am running Ubuntu 12.04 really using…
user276606
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Only root can play sounds

I did a minimal installation of ubuntu server on my computer cause I wanted to have a clean environment to run a very lightweight window manager (xmonad). I don't know much about the sound system in ubuntu so I blindly installed alsa and pulseaudio…
Rafael S. Calsaverini
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