Temporary Root Authroization For Gnome

[Rich Renomeron]

On Fri, 2005-02-25 at 18:16 -0500, Michael E. Crute wrote:

> I would like to be able to do this with Gnome so that the file manager
> can run as root until I tell it to "forget the user authorization".
> Right now I have two alternatives, log in to Gnome as root or use a
> command prompt neither of which I want to do. 

It's cheesy, but it will work:

ssh -Y root at localhost nautilus --no-desktop --browser

Gnome seems to intercept the ssh process and pop up a dialog for the
appropriate password password.  I tried it from Actions->Run
application, which means if you go to the trouble to make a launcher
(.desktop file) for it, it should work too.  The -Y makes the X
forwarding work.

For others on the list who aren't opposed to having a shell window open,
you can also look into using sudo, which can let you run most any
command as root when you need to, with varying degrees of control over
which commands are allowed and who can run them, and whether or not they
need to enter (their personal) password, and other things.  Handy for
when you need to edit a config file, but don't feel like opening a full
root shell, or when you trust someone to do a specific admin task, but
don't want to share the root password.

Good luck,
Rich 

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