Fails to authenticate critical Administation tools like Networking, Services, etc

Hi mohan!

How did you install your Ubuntu? Did you use the other install methods (like expert or server)?

I had a similar experience of this bug when I did an expert install first, then installing the rest of ubuntu-desktop, only to find that the above parts of System -> Administration doesn't work. Unfortunately, I do not remember the workaround for this anymore :( so I will try to recreate this setup...

Cheers,

Zakame

Hi Zakame,

I 'think' that the bug may be associated with the 'Configure a multi-seat system' option during expert install. AFAIK normal (non-expert) installs have not had this problem. And I did an expert install on the same machine which had the problem before, but skipped the 'Configure multi-seat system' option. I did not skip any other step. Now all the admin tools work fine.

May be it is some mis-configuration I did with the 'multi-seat' option during earlier (I can't remember) or there is a real bug. Anyway, kindly review the 'multi-seat' option.

Thanks
Mohan

Mohan wrote:
> The entire list of tools having this problem is:
>
> NOT Working List: (System -> Administration)
> ----------------
> Disks
> Networking
> Services
> Shared Folders
> Time and Date
> Users and Groups

All these tools belong to one package - gnome-system-tools and this package still uses gksudo in menu launcher (desktop file), e.g. "Exec=gksudo network-admin" instead of gksu :(
(for more info about why administrative tools should use gksu instead of gksudo look at bug #30057 in launchpad)
Maybe this could couse your problem ?

I installed the system with "multi-seat" and "expert" options and had the same problems. The workaround was adding a line to /etc/sudoers like "user ALL=(ALL)ALL". That has let me avoid entering password at all.
I guess the problem is just in lack of rights for usual users to run sudo...

Already had this problem. You need to add your user to /etc/sudoers file. as said above. IMHO it's safe to add a line "%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL" for the users of the "admin" group to have sudo privileges. I suggest that this line be in the file by default.

Problem is identified. Suggestion for adding a line permanently to sudoers file.

Kevin,

the line

  %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

*is* in the default suders. Any idea how it disappeared from your system?

I have that line in sudoers.
Maybe it's somewhat different case. I changed root password with "passwd" and now all Administration section doesn't accept it.
My system is installed by default.
Though, the installation didn't offer to set root password, maybe this is the reason.

This bug occured to me in 5.05 and 6.06.

Victor, the Ubuntu Desktop administration tools are specifically designed to use sudo instead of su, i. e. authenticate with the user's password and ignore the root user completely. Thus this is by design and not a bug.

In any case this is not a sudo bug. If the %admin ALL line was not added by default, since you did an expert install and added a root user, then I think this is just the sort of bug you have to expect when you specifically deviate from the default authentication system.

Breezy : Victor's comment deviated from the original "bug" a bit. I'd say that the sudo confusion stems from the lack of clear message by the gui tools about not being an sudoer. The gksudo just asked for a password but no password was ever going to work anyway, which is a little pointless.

Dapper : The admin tools seems to have be removed from non-admin's system menu in dapper. gksudo also tells clearly (somewhat) that the user is not a sudoer, but only after the password prompt.