no root term after upgrade deb 9-10

[dblake2]

based on shep's post i tried entering the command manually from a normal terminal as reg user (gksu /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator).

this produced same result as clicking on 'root terminal' icon, ie, pw prompt where i am unable to enter characters (i type but nothing appears, click ok & get login failure msg).

went back to reg terminal & it showed the pw I had just entered.

i then entered 'su', became root & entered the /usr/bin/x.... command & a root terminal opened up, but i note it is called 'xfce terminal'.

does this provide any clues as to what is going on? i do wonder why xfce terminal is appearing when i'm using the gnome desktop.
---
ok, i just booted to the xfce desktop, ran the 'root terminal' & note that it is labeled 'gnome terminal'.

[shep]

I use a simple xterm/uxterm but you can end up with mutiple terminals. lxterminal, xfce-terminal, gnome-terminal, sakura, urxvt, st and on.
To see what terminals you have installed
dpkg -l | grep term

/usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator is usually a soft link to your perfered terminal and is user specific. You should not need preface the command with gksu.
https://packages.debian.org/stretch/x-terminal-emulator

The other complicated aspect is that you can have mulitple shells, You are likely using Bash
https://wiki.debian.org/Shell

There is usually a configuration in your home directory that sets the default paths for your shell.

[djk44883]

x-terminal-emulator can be most any terminal you want, to see some options

Code: Select all

sudo update-alternatives --list x-terminal-emulator

If you go back and read the part about gdm3 and wayland... and Xorg not allowing root privileges you'll find out what the deal may be.

[L_V]

For the 2 comics (page 1) who feeled allowed to treat people as "crazy", "insane" or even more people using "sudo su", instead of 'sudo -i", to switch from user to root in a terminal, they should definitely share their experience with FreeBSD and CentOS users.

How to Use Sudo on Debian, CentOS, and FreeBSD
https://www.vultr.com/docs/how-to-use-s ... nd-freebsd

Any of the below commands will allow the sudo user to become root.
sudo su -
sudo -i
sudo -S

If Debian considered that "sudo su" was so "crazy/insane" compared to "sudo -i", "sudo su" would have been forbidden by default in visudo (managing sudoers permissions).
I've started using Linux with a Netinstall of Morphix I think it was in 2002/3, and never seen people treating people "crazy/insane" without any valid argumentation. Even not sure this is compliant with forum rules.
Well, to not frustrate some people and avoid pointless discussions, let's say "sudo -i" here. This will calm them down.

Now, as I said before, I see a real confusion between starting a root session from a user terminal, then, to execute some administration tasks, and trying to launch graphical applications as root.
This is the point.

based on shep's post i tried entering the command manually from a normal terminal as reg user (gksu /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator).

You still have some Stretch packages in your Buster.
I think what you do is wrong simply because "gksu/gksudo,kdesu,kdesudo" commands do not exist in Buster, and what you try is not clean.
The only administrative graphical application I use is Gparted.
The Gparted launcher command is simply..... "/usr/sbin/gparted", but when launching the program, a password will be requested because permissions are managed by policykit-1 which content is:

/usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.gnome.gparted.policy

Code: Select all

<defaults>
    <allow_any>auth_admin</allow_any>
    <allow_inactive>auth_admin</allow_inactive>
    <allow_active>auth_admin</allow_active>
</defaults>

Then, if you have old application launchers which Exec command contain "gksu", you should progressively forget them, to avoid coming difficulties with Buster.
I do not have any problem in KDE opening Konsole (terminal) as user, and open a new Tab, with a profile defined to open a root session, even with a "RED Tab icon" to clearly identify this special session.
I must say I practically never need to open a root session (mainly to manage deboostrap installations, and chroot).

Then some practices need to be changed from Stretch to Buster.

[dblake2]

i decided to try ALL of my desktop choices available after entering username & the root term access works in all of them except 'gnome'.

they all work by entering user pw, not root pw.

the choices are:

gnome classic-works ok
gnome on xorg=works ok
default x session=works ok (this is xfce)
xfce session=works ok
system x11 default=works ok (also xfce)
gnome=don't work (the one this post has been about)

any comments-other than too many choices? (which I agree with).

[dblake2]

i decided to try all the available desktops in debian 9 & made 2 discoveries.

1) there are 8 choices & root term access works in all of them (with root pw, not user pw like deb10) except 'gnome on wayland' which acts exactly like 'gnome' on deb 10, sounds like what head-on-a -stick was talking about.

so it seems the 'gnome' on deb10 is 'gnome wayland' on deb9. they are both hosed as far as running the root term goes. Can anyone give a definitive answer on whether there should even be a root term icon in gnome wayland?

i would say it carried over by mistake from the upgrade from deb9 except deb9 has one also (that don't work).

i also discovered i have to reboot to switch between gnome & xfce desktops in deb 9 but thats a different subject, not that big a deal.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Can anyone give a definitive answer on whether there should even be a root term icon in gnome wayland?

The presence of the icon is determined by the .desktop file in accordance with the desktop menu specification. The fact that Wayland doesn't allow it to function is irrelevant in respect of the actual specification as it stands.

If you don't like the icon and you're using the Wayland desktop then copy the offending .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications and add Hidden=true to the end of the file.

[shep]

Some desktop entries have entries as mimetypes in which case NoDisplay=true should be used.

https://standards.freedesktop.org/deskt ... nized-keys

For xterm, uxterm, rxvt and urxvt you can allow root login in your ~/.Xresources or ~/.Xdefaults flle.

Code: Select all

! $Crux: dot.Xdefaults,v 1.3 2019/07/10 10:22:59 jsh Exp $
! XTerm
XTerm*loginShell: true
XTerm*background: #292929
XTerm*foreground: white
XTerm*scrollBar: true
XTerm*rightScrollBar: true
XTerm*multiScroll: on
XTerm*jumpScroll: on
!XTerm*locale: true
XTerm*faceName: Monospace
XTerm*faceSize: 10
XTerm*eightBitInput: true
XTerm*pointerShape: left_ptr
XTerm*showBlinkAsBold: true
XTerm*colorBDMode: true
XTerm*ActiveIcon: true
XTerm*scrollbar.foreground: #212121
XTerm*scrollbar.background: #393F3F
XTerm*scrollbar.thumb: black
XTerm*VT100.scrollbar.translations:  #override \n\
        <Btn5Down>:     StartScroll(Forward) \n\
        <Btn1Down>:     StartScroll(Continuous) MoveThumb() NotifyThumb() \n\
        <Btn4Down>:     StartScroll(Backward) \n\
        <Btn1Motion>:   MoveThumb() NotifyThumb() \n\
        <BtnUp>:        NotifyScroll(Proportional) EndScroll()
XTerm*VT100.color1: #2F4F4F

Another option to perform administration from the command line is to open a VT <ctl>+<alt>+<F*> and login as root. The F* keys depends on the number of TTY's that have been allocated.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I've just tried the live ISO image for the GNOME desktop and there is no "root terminal" icon there at all. I even installed the XFCE desktop (task) and that doesn't show a "root terminal" option either.

It must be a remnant from stretch, see if you can find the .desktop file and just delete it.

[djk44883]

For the 2 comics (page 1) who feeled allowed to treat people as "crazy", "insane" or even more people using "sudo su", instead of 'sudo -i", to switch from user to root in a terminal, they should definitely share their experience with FreeBSD and CentOS users.

How to Use Sudo on Debian, CentOS, and FreeBSD
https://www.vultr.com/docs/how-to-use-s ... nd-freebsd

The article you referenced was not for end users or a desktop system...

Using a sudo user to access a server and execute commands at root level is a very common practice among Linux and Unix Systems Administrator.

Note: "access a server" and "practice among Linux and Unix Systems Administrator" That's not what's going on here.

Try this Debian Wiki page https://wiki.debian.org/sudo

..."allow some users to execute some commands as root"...

So you don't need to become root with sudo -as noted in Debian's Wiki-

For the reasons above, switching to root using sudo -i (or sudo su) is usually deprecated because it cancels the above features.

Some things really are just insanely crazy

[L_V]

It seems clear that people having headache with all "su/sudo" stories are those trying to open graphic applications as root user.
Graphic application permissions are managed by Polkit (policykit), then to be open with pkexec

Code: Select all

pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY <my_app>

+

Code: Select all

alias pkexec='pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY'

to be inserted in ~/.bash_aliases

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Graphic application permissions are managed by Polkit (policykit), then to be open with pkexec

That requires a polkit configuration file for the application and also for the program to be able to take advantage of polkit.

[L_V]

No, if a policykit rule is already available, just "pkexec <command>" will be enough.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

if a policykit rule is already available

That's my point: not all programs supply a policykit rule.

[L_V]

No, because not "all" programs need a polkit rule.
I personally do not have any need for this, and even don't understand all these permanent requests to open a program in a graphical "root" environment.
Total mystery / wrong practice.
I just say, for those who insist, there is a technical solution.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

No, because not "all" programs need a polkit rule.

Well this thread is about "root terminals" and gnome-terminal (for example) doesn't supply a polkit rule so your suggestion wouldn't work.

[L_V]

..... read again ... and may be simply try. Just be curious.
If it works for me and others, no reason it does work for you.

[CwF]

It started right before the freeze, the root permissions mess. For awhile we needed the gnome-admin helper thingie to make the few polkit compliant things work. Many only had the right packages in what is now bullseye. One by one the issues got corrected and a non-gnome desktop now doesn't need the gnome helper. By release it seems all were fixed.

Sometimes, passwords just suck...I prefer 'possession of the keyboard security'

Code: Select all

    <defaults>
        <allow_any>no</allow_any>
        <allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
        <allow_active>yes</allow_active>
    </defaults>

The working things now that just open from the menu when I click, like I own the damn system...

com.ubuntu.pkexec.gdebi-gtk.policy
com.ubuntu.pkexec.synaptic.policy
org.bleachbit.policy
org.freedesktop.pkexec.usbview.policy
org.gnome.gparted.policy
org.xfce.thunar.policy
org.xfce.xfce4-terminal.policy

[L_V]

There is nothing new with Policykit already available in Jessie and even before.
The purpose is to embed the permission policy rule directly in the program package.
It is impossible for visudo to manage program permission with the granularity of Policykit, and visudo is then untouched when a program is installed.

In summary, visudo manages the permissions at low level (user/groups permission policy).
Policykit is more dedicated to graphical applications, with some fine-tuning for each desktop environment.

[CwF]

There is nothing new with Policykit already available in Jessie and even before.

...that's nice. That list came about, to fruition, during buster and not before.