How to add my user account to admin group (13.10 desktop)

Question

I was trying to extract a web template into the hosting folder /docroot on the web service, which is working, however I do not have permission to complete the action.

I cannot stand being locked out of anything on a machine, and before you all go on a rant about why the root account is locked yadda yadda , dont, just dont.

So... did a sudo visudo

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
username   ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

saved as tmp and then as sudoers , checked the files, both sudoers and sudoers.tmp same size

Still no joy, cannot access required folders and files. Rebooted, no go

I was about to start editing the passwd files next, but thought I best ask what might be going on here as I am not entirely familiar with Ubuntu 13.10 desktop and Unity.

This is not a production machine, only experimenting with web services and the available web production tools. I get the root account is locked and sudo 'ing every command from the command line is not an option, just aggro.

If anyone can offer a (even if unsecured) solution to this permissions issue I would be very grateful. I do not care about breakage, please do not lecture, I can re-image this unit in less than 20 min.

I tried adding my account to the admin group as well, only to get an error saying the admin group doesn't exist.

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

huh? Yep, confused. TIA

see http://askubuntu.com/questions/66718/how-to-manage-users-and-groups and http://askubuntu.com/questions/70236/create-an-administrator-user-in-command-line — Takkat, Feb 24 '14 at 20:10
What is the exact permission error and what program exactly issue it? sudoers has nothing to do with file permissions. — Braiam, Feb 24 '14 at 20:19

nux · Answer 1 · 2014-02-24T20:17:47.763

1

Its Not recommended to add users to root group .

sudo usermod -aG (nameofgroup) (nameofuser)

the user will be a member of the group .

You can use chown to give the user the owenership :

sudo chown username:usergroup /path -R

-R means recursive so user well be the owner also of subfolders .

Now you can give the user who owned this directory a full access by :

sudo chmod 755 /path

755 means (drwxr-xr-x) read write execute permissions for the owner .

edited Feb 24 '14 at 20:17

answered Feb 24 '14 at 20:01

nux

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[sudo useradd -G admin username].....
useradd: group 'admin' does not exist
– brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:09
I would be inclined to change the ownership on the entire drive, but do not know what that would do to the apps/services – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:12
There is no admin in 13.10 - you may by looking for group sudo. – Takkat Feb 24 '14 at 20:12
useradd -G root username – nux Feb 24 '14 at 20:12
its not recommended man – nux Feb 24 '14 at 20:12
useradd should not be used on Debian systems. – Takkat Feb 24 '14 at 20:13
Thats fine, anyone want to explain why sudo visudo edits do nothing? see OP – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:14
@Takkat what command should be used – nux Feb 24 '14 at 20:15
Members of the admin group may gain root privileges..... %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL.....looks like an admin group – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:16
its usermod -aG (preferred) or adduser. – Takkat Feb 24 '14 at 20:16
@ brettnelson if the answer help you mark it a good answer to help others – nux Feb 24 '14 at 20:16
usermod: Permission denied. usermod: cannot lock /etc/passwd; try again later...... tried usermod -aG root username (error above) – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:20
There seem to be several ways to do this, yet none work lol helarious – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:21
use sudo before the command man – nux Feb 24 '14 at 20:22
dammit, got ahead of myself, thanks, regardles tho I still do not understand why the sudo visudo edit did not work, thats the way it should have been handled , rather than ading myself to the root, correct?....or for that matter why the admin group IS listed in teh sudoers file, dont get it – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:25
no go, adding to root did not work – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:37
did you try to change the owner of the directory – nux Feb 24 '14 at 20:38
before I go changing owners I would like to understand the sudo visudo issue. – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:41
username:x:0:0:,,,:/home/username:/bin/bash.......changed in the passwd file, but wont let me save, permissions error again – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 20:49
Anyone care to tackle why this doesnt work.....?.......# User privilege specification root ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL username ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 21:11
sudo usermod -aG sudo username --------although no errors reported, doesnt seem to do anything either – brettnelson Feb 24 '14 at 21:27

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

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So after chowning i was able to modify what i needed, however this seems to have created some other issues with installed packages, or possibly more likely the several attempts to modify group permissions etc caused issues, so reimaged the unit and did the following...

How to enable root login?

Provided you are not concerned about security I feel this the the best solution. The other solutions SHOULD have worked, but didnt so I can only assume its due to much buggering on the part of ubuntu.

Thanks for those who offered guidance.

Note to Ubuntu, if I wanted to be locked out of my system I would buy a mac

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Community

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answered Feb 26 '14 at 11:26

brettnelson

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An old topic I know, but I'm having the same problem as you, and have been racking my brain as to what's going on. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. I'm going with enabling root login, as silly as it seems. – rosscova Aug 02 '16 at 06:55

How to add my user account to admin group (13.10 desktop)

2 Answers2