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[SOLVED] Passwords messed up

Linux Kernel, Network, and Services configuration.
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ticojohn
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[SOLVED] Passwords messed up

#1 Post by ticojohn »

For some reason, the Synaptic Package Manager is no longer accepting my root password but instead will accept only my user password. What the heck? Where do I look and what do I look for to see what may have happened? To my knowledge I did nothing to cause the problem.

UPDATE: Just to be clear, if I want to open a terminal as root, or use su, the original root password still works.
Last edited by ticojohn on 2017-05-02 20:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#2 Post by Bulkley »

Does it work? Does a CLI command such as apt-get update work?

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Re: Passwords messed up

#3 Post by ticojohn »

Bulkley wrote:Does it work? Does a CLI command such as apt-get update work?
Yes. From a root terminal, opened with root password, I can do apt-get update

I just read a post on the Ubuntu forum that may be related. Maybe has something to do with the gconf. They suggest opening gconf-editor but I don't know exactly how to do that and am a bit hesitant as it is not a Debian post.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#4 Post by Bulkley »

I'd be tempted to re-install Synaptic. That might entail doing a complete purge, including any Synaptic configuration scripts. I would suggest looking in the ~/. hidden files but Synaptic doesn't have one that I can find. If you have one, rename it and try again.

Which Debian are you using?

Do you have any sort of sudo set up?

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Re: Passwords messed up

#5 Post by ticojohn »

Bulkley wrote:I'd be tempted to re-install Synaptic. That might entail doing a complete purge, including any Synaptic configuration scripts. I would suggest looking in the ~/. hidden files but Synaptic doesn't have one that I can find. If you have one, rename it and try again.

Which Debian are you using?

Do you have any sort of sudo set up?
I am running Jessie i386. XFCE desktop. gdm3 as the display manager
Yes, I have my user set to use sudo
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Re: Passwords messed up

#6 Post by ticojohn »

Okay, if I do

Code: Select all

apt-get purge synaptic
will that remove configuration files, or is there something more that needs to be done? Or is it better to do

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apt-get remove synaptic
Would this be appropriate and do I need to do this after doing the purge / remove ?

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aptitude purge '~c'
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Re: Passwords messed up

#7 Post by ticojohn »

I looked at

Code: Select all

aptitude purge '~c'
and don't think that would be the thing to do.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#8 Post by ticojohn »

The problem appears to be more widespread than just synaptic. I tried to open the System Log, from the System menu, and it too will not open with the root password but does open with my user password. What the HECK happened and how do I fix it? Not sure where to look. HELP!
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Re: Passwords messed up

#9 Post by GarryRicketson »

postby ticojohn » 2017-05-01 16:02
For some reason, the Synaptic Package Manager is no longer accepting my root password but instead will accept only my user password.
ticojohn » Yes, I have my user set to use sudo
I do not use "sudo", so I might be wrong, but doing a quick search , I see this:
from: https://linuxacademy.com/blog/linux/lin ... ners-sudo/
Note that it is asking for your password, not the root password.
The way I interpret that, it is saying You do NOT use the "root" password, when you are using "sudo", you use your user password.

---- additional ------
As far as this goes:
Postby ticojohn » 2017-05-01 17:47
I looked at

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    aptitude purge '~c'

and don't think that would be the thing to do.
Well it depends if you really want to remove and purge some package,...
is there some reason you do not use the -s option as well ?

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man aptitude
-s, --simulate
In command-line mode, print the actions that would normally be
performed, but don't actually perform them. This does not require
root privileges. In the visual interface, always open the cache in
read-only mode regardless of whether you are root.

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::Simulate.
The -s option allows you to see what exactly will be purged, etc, But the problem is not that you need to re-install synaptic or anything, since you are using sudo, you are supposed to use the user password, ...I guess, like I said I don't use it, but that is what the search results say.
Actually the manual confirms this, I did not read the entire manual for you, since I do not use "sudo", I have no reason to do that, so you might want to try reading it yourself.

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man sudo
OPTIONS
sudo accepts the following command line options:

-A Normally, if sudo requires a password, it will read it from the user's
terminal. If the -A (askpass) option is specified, a (possibly graphical)
helper program is executed to read the user's password and output the password
to the standard output. If the SUDO_ASKPASS environment variable is set, it
specifies the path to the helper program. Otherwise, if /etc/sudo.conf
contains a line specifying the askpass program, that value will be used. For
example:
Last edited by GarryRicketson on 2017-05-02 03:07, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Passwords messed up

#10 Post by Bulkley »

For the moment, hold off on removing Synaptic. Your problem may be in Sudo. Somehow or other you may have given Sudo an extra permission directly or through groups. Try opening Synaptic in a terminal. Try it as a user and also as root. Post any error messages and behaviour.

I see Garry has posted and he is right so try his suggestion first.

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Re: Passwords messed up

#11 Post by eor2004 »

Like the other users have said, and the way I see it too, is that your system is setup to use "sudo" password, your "user" password as root, I think you should remove yourself from "sudo" by doing an "deluser yourusername sudo" and then try again to open synaptic with your real "root" or "su" password, hope this helps!
Last edited by eor2004 on 2017-05-02 02:13, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#12 Post by ticojohn »

Bulkley wrote:For the moment, hold off on removing Synaptic. Your problem may be in Sudo. Somehow or other you may have given Sudo an extra permission directly or through groups. Try opening Synaptic in a terminal. Try it as a user and also as root. Post any error messages and behaviour.

I see Garry has posted and he is right so try his suggestion first.
Here is an attempt to open synaptic in a terminal as user. I presume this is what you wanted to see.

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john@JohnBoy:~$ synaptic
bash: synaptic: command not found
As root, I enter synaptic and it opens.

Not sure what Garry's suggestion is. I read the link but don't see what actions I might take. And seeing that other programs, as mentioned previously, are also doing the same I wonder what might be messed up. Hope not to have to reinstall Jessie but will if necessary.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#13 Post by ticojohn »

eor2004 wrote:Like the other users have said, and the way I see it too, is that your system is setup to use "sudo" password, your "user" password as root, I think you should remove yourself from "sudo" by doing an "deluser yourusername sudo" and then try again to open synaptic with your real "root" or "su" password, hope this helps!
Hope that doing as you suggest doesn't make root password nonfunctional.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#14 Post by ticojohn »

Okay. I did as suggested by eor2004 and removed myself from the sudo group. I now appear to have proper operation of Synaptic and System Logs from the System Menu .

Now that is appears to be working correctly, does anybody have ideas as to what may have caused this? I would not think that just adding myself to the sudo group would cause said behavior.

However, after deleting myself from sudo I did this

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root@JohnBoy:/home/john# deluser john sudo
/usr/sbin/deluser: The user `john' is not a member of group `sudo'.
and then this

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john@JohnBoy:~$ sudo apt-get update
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie InRelease
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie-updates InRelease                          
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates InRel
Somehow I am still able to use sudo . That's kind of crazy.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#15 Post by ticojohn »

All is okay. I rebooted and, as best I can tell, everything works as it should. Probably all operator error, though I really don't know what I may have done. :oops: Thanks for the help fellas. We can consider this closed.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#16 Post by eor2004 »

I have added my user account password to use as "sudo" by doing "adduser myusername sudo" and removed myself "deluser myusername sudo" a couple of times without any trouble, by doing an "deluser myusername sudo" you're telling your system to stop using your user account password as if it were your root password and start using again your real root password you had setup when installing debian.

P.S. A "logout" or a "reboot" maybe needed afterwards.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#17 Post by GarryRicketson »

ticojohn wrote:

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john@JohnBoy:~$ synaptic
bash: synaptic: command not found
As root, I enter synaptic and it opens.

Not sure what Garry's suggestion is. I read the link but don't see what actions I might take. And seeing that other programs, as mentioned previously, are also doing the same I wonder what might be messed up. Hope not to have to reinstall Jessie but will if necessary.
Nothing is messed up,...a normal user can not start synaptic, it either needs to be root, and using root password.
OR
Using sudo, and then the users password would be used.

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garry@debian:~$ synaptic
-bash: synaptic: command not found
 
You would need to use :

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sudo synaptic
and then you would be prompted for the USERS password,...not root's password.
But any way, since you have removed the user from sudo, you won't be able to
use sudo any more.
Of course you can put the user back into the sudo group later if so desired.
The link I posted , goes to a very basic simple tutorial, on "sudo", that is where
I saw that it said,
Note that it is asking for your password, not the root password.
It also tells about adding a user to sudo or removing a user from sudo, and other things about using sudo.
There never was anything wrong with your system to start with, the tutorial all though basic, would be easier to understand then the manual, but obviously you
did not really read it, nor the manual,....
ticojohn> Probably all operator error, though I really don't know what I may have done.

Probably ???, It definitely is , and there never really was anything wrong, it was because you did not know what you are doing, and when someone does not know what they are doing, they certainly should not be doing things as root, or even using sudo,...

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Re: Passwords messed up

#18 Post by ticojohn »

Garry,
Thanks so much for the kind words. I did read the link and I do understand the difference between using su and sudo, thank you very much. My issue was that never before, when selecting Synaptic from the applications menu, had the system required me to enter my user password instead of the root password. Be that as it may I will carry on. Thanks for all of the positive remarks.

Perhaps the reason it happened is that after adding myself to the sudo group, certain items in the Application Menu>System would then request my user password. Seems odd to me but perhaps that's just the way it is.

From my point of view, if I am invoking Synaptic from a terminal then using my user password, if invoked using sudo, is okay. However, I would think that when selecting from the menu that it would want my root password. However, I can maybe understand that when logged in, and as part of the sudo group, perhaps the system is looking for the user password to open Synaptic. I think that having that kind of access would allow someone other than myself, if the computer was unattended and not locked, to be able to use Synaptic without my knowing it. For instance, in a terminal one could enter

Code: Select all

gksu synaptic
and it would open. No password required.
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Re: Passwords messed up

#19 Post by eor2004 »

ticojohn wrote:Perhaps the reason it happened is that after adding myself to the sudo group, certain items in the Application Menu>System would then request my user password. Seems odd to me but perhaps that's just the way it is.
Yes, this is the way the system should behave after adding yourself as "sudo".
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Re: Passwords messed up

#20 Post by ticojohn »

eor2004 wrote:
ticojohn wrote:Perhaps the reason it happened is that after adding myself to the sudo group, certain items in the Application Menu>System would then request my user password. Seems odd to me but perhaps that's just the way it is.
Yes, this is the way the system should behave after adding yourself as "sudo".
Well, now I know. Good to have a definitive answer instead of telling me to go read something that may, or may not, answer my question.
I usually do try to read and understand prior to asking a question here. Thanks for your feedback.
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