Re: [tlug] Up & Down With Ubuntu (was different Ubuntu Issue)

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

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On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 11:14:01AM +0900, Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon wrote:


> 
> "halt" produces "must be supervisor"
> "shutdown" produces "you must be root to do that!"
> "poweroff" produces "must be supervisor
> 
> But... the thing is - this being Ubuntu - there is only one password!
> If you have the patience and time, have a look at the following text,
> but I'm basically hoping to be able to boot into either KDE or GNOME and
> to be able to shut the machine down without just dumping the power....


When I've tried the English language version, I believe I was able to
shutdown from either Gnome or KDE.

Are you familiar with sudo? 

Ubuntu, and Mac OSX (as well as other distributions, PCBSD etc.) disable
root by default.  (Actually, in PCBSD, you set a root password and can
use su, but I digress.)

Instead, you use the sudo command.  This enables you to run a command as
root and use your password.  

So, if you want to run a command that requires root privilege

sudo /sbin/shutdown -h now

Then it will ask for your password--not root's password, but your
password.

Josh made a post recently about using sudo with Gentoo--he mentioned
starting a series of commands with sudo -v.  This basically asks for the
password once then you can type a series of commands within a certain
time frame.  Not knowing Gentoo, I don't use this, in FreeBSD and
ArchLinux, you type one command with sudo and are asked for your
password, but any other commands within a certain time limit (5 minutes
I think, but I don't know) can be run with sudo without retyping the
password.

Use of the sudo command is handy with any *nix operating system, but for
those like Ubuntu, it's essential.


- -- 

Scott Robbins

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Xander: What do you feel?
Anya: Upset, afraid of being without you, and a little hungry.
Xander: I meant about the house.
Anya: Oh. Still haunted.
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