kpassworddialog, kdesu

[Richard Dale]

On Wednesday 31 January 2007, Thomas Zander wrote:
> On Wednesday 31 January 2007 16:47, John Tapsell wrote:
> > Btw, it's currently not very clear whether you are supposed to type in
> > the root password, or type in your own password (for when you use
> > sudo).
>
> Do note that a system that is based on sudo like privilege system has the
> concept of only one password. Which technically is the users password.  But
> to the user there is simply one password.  The dialog should be able to
> have a 'mode' that makes this distinction.
> Where the 'sudo' mode basically means the user gets to type a password with
> nothing but a string like: "Type your password:"
>
> Slightly off topic;
> A bug in kubuntu currently is that in several places there is a kdesu
> dialog that is based on sudo, but if you remove the sudo priviledges (not
> put the user in group 'staff') this means the passwords will consistently
> fail without proper indication and without fallbacks to the root password.
> Would be nice if there was either a user-wide setting for this mode, or an
> easier way to do this in the API.
I think the main problem with kdesu and sudo is that as everything is started 
via kdesu_stub, you can't control which programs specific users are allowed 
to use via the sudoers file. So it's all or nothing in kubuntu, everyone in 
the admin group can do everything.

-- Richard