Assigning privileges with sudo and PolicyKit

Licensed to Manage

Article from Issue 146/2013
Author(s):

If you give users who are usually supervised more scope to help themselves, they will need additional privileges. The sudo tool and the PolicyKit authorization service can control who does what on Linux.

For admins, it would be a relief if regular users were able to handle minor management tasks, such as updating software, themselves. The only problem is that apt‑get requires administrative privileges, and you would not typically want to grant those to a regular user. Fortunately, admins can work with sudo or the PolicyKit authorization service to allow specific actions in a targeted way.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
Print Issues
Digital Issues
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Print Subs
Digisubs
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Professor Knopper's Lab – Removing systemd

    The systemd service manager has been widely adopted by many Linux distros, so why would you want to remove it? The professor reveals why and how.

    more »
  • KDE 4.3

    At the beginning of August, the KDE project released the third major update of KDE 4 – reason enough to put KDE 4.3 through its paces and study the new features.

    more »
  • Ask Klaus!

    Klaus Knopper is the creator of Knoppix and co-founder of LinuxTag expo. He works as a teacher, programmer, and consultant. If you have a configuration problem, or if you just want to learn more about how Linux works, send your questions to: klaus@linux-magazine.com.

    more »
  • GNOME 2.30 Updates and Improves Desktop

    With the release of GNOME 2.30, various improvements and changes went into the free Linux desktop.

    more »
  • Ask Klaus!

    Understanding and taming file timestamps.

    more »
comments powered by Disqus