Doing administration tasks without administrative privileges.
22
votes
4answers
6k views
Can I create a user-specific hosts file to complement /etc/hosts?
Is it possible to add a list of hosts that are only specific to a certain user? Perhaps a user-specific hosts file?
This mechanism should also complement the entries in the /etc/hosts file.
21
votes
7answers
2k views
Non-Root Package Managers
From my research, I seem to notice that all package managers insist on being used as a privileged user and must be installed into /.
Typically, what I like to do is create a throwaway account, ...
13
votes
3answers
3k views
Why can't a normal user `chown` a file?
Why is the chown command root-only?
Why can't non-root users use chown to give away files they own?
12
votes
3answers
2k views
How to “jail” a process without being root?
Were I root, I could simply create a dummy user/group, set file permissions accordingly and execute the process as that user. However I am not, so is there any way to achieve this without being root?
10
votes
6answers
4k views
Can I create override dns similar to writing in /etc/hosts without root access
I want to set a dns record that my browser will use, but I don't have root access, so I can't modify /etc/hosts. I need to do this for testing vhosts with apache, whose dns hasn't yet been set up. I ...
9
votes
2answers
4k views
How to create a user with limited RAM usage?
So I have 4 GB RAM + 4GB swap. I want to create a user with limited ram and swap: 3 GB RAM and 1 GB swap. Is such thing possible? Is it possible to start applications with limited RAM and swap ...
6
votes
3answers
5k views
Installing a .deb package in home directory
Is it possible to install a .deb package completely under my home directory at debian?
6
votes
1answer
7k views
Installing Chrome on Linux without needing to be root
How can I install Chrome on Linux without needing to log in as root?
Note that I want to use Chrome, not Chromium.
If I go to the official download page, I get the choice between:
Please select ...
6
votes
2answers
90 views
Installing a package locally to a user - best practices?
I want to install Git locally to a user on a RHEL server (I don't have root access)
What would be your cleanest/ most organized way of installing software to a local user account?
Installing ...
6
votes
1answer
166 views
How do DE's call ACPI functions?
Okay, first off, this is not a problem I am facing, but I would like to understand this better.
If I wish to shutdown / reboot my machine from the command line I need to call:
$ sudo poweroff
$ sudo ...
6
votes
3answers
244 views
How can I build and install PL/R as a non-privileged user?
There is a postgres instance, and I have the ability to build my own instance.
Using these instructions I ran:
USE_PGXS=1 make
which worked but then
USE_PGXS=1 make install
did not, with this ...
5
votes
3answers
365 views
Can I have my own version control system?
In the linux/unix machine I am using, I am just a normal user. However, I want a version control system to manage my files to prevent accidental delete/rename/lost/modification. Obviously I don't have ...
5
votes
6answers
2k views
Install virtual machine as non-root?
Is it possible to install any virtual machine software as non-root user and run it ?
Which VM's are possible to be installed with out need of root access ?
If it is not possible what would be the ...
5
votes
3answers
202 views
Preventing binary planting attacks in Linux
If a user account on a Linux machine is compromised, clearly, all files owned by that user are compromised.
Unfortunately, if the compromised user also has sudo privileges, it seems that binary ...
5
votes
3answers
3k views
How to get dmidecode information without root privileges?
I'm writing a program that displays various system information (on a CentOS system). For example, the processor type and speed (from /proc/cpuinfo), the last boot time (calculated from /proc/uptime), ...
5
votes
4answers
2k views
Apt-get autocompletion
I am currently running 64-bit Debian Wheezy.
I am having some trouble with auto completion for apt-get. I have bash-completion installed.
If I am logged in as root in a shell, I can use auto ...
5
votes
1answer
215 views
suid-root doesn't have effect
A program from apue.
#include "apue.h"
#include <fcntl.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
if(argc!=2)
err_quit("usage: a.out <pathname>");
if(access(argv[1], ...
5
votes
1answer
1k views
Is it possible to run a webdav fuse client with no root access?
I have seen examples showing how to use davfs2 under linux, but each has involved one of these things:
Running mount as root
Adding an entry to /etc/fstab
Running mount.davfs setuid, which, alas, ...
5
votes
1answer
323 views
How can I make this daemon/init run as a non root user?
I have an init script to kick off a daemon. The problem is it runs as root. I would like it to run as a user called "deploy". Ubuntu 12.04
#! /bin/sh
# File: /etc/init.d/unicorn
### BEGIN INIT ...
4
votes
1answer
572 views
Where should a local executable be placed?
I have an executable for the perforce version control client (p4). I can't place it in /opt/local because I don't have root privileges. Is there a standard location where it needs to be placed under ...
4
votes
2answers
285 views
Admin user not showing directory path in console prompt, only $
I have an Ubuntu server that I administer through ssh. When I login as root I get a full path in the prompt, like /var/www. I created a user with sudo privileges for the purpose of administration. ...
4
votes
2answers
4k views
How to install program locally without sudo privileges?
Assume I have ssh access to some Ubuntu server as user and I need some not system tools to be installed for convenience (mc, rtorrent, mcedit). I do not want to bother admins for these small programs. ...
4
votes
2answers
163 views
What is an effective method for installing up-to-date software on an out-dated production machine?
Apologies if this has been asked already, but I'm such a beginner, I'm not even able phrase a search query for this.
Background
My company uses a small out-dated cluster (CentOS 5.4) to do number ...
4
votes
1answer
151 views
Is it possible to have X parse a per-user configuration file?
I am thinking that many of the options that one has to write in the traditional system Xorg.conf file, have to do with user preferences and thus should not IMHO be set by system administrators. In ...
4
votes
2answers
381 views
umount an external ntfs drive as non-root
I have ntfs-3g installed, and use this udev rule to auto mount external drives automatically. When I try umount it as non-root, it says:
umount: /media/umm is not in the fstab (and you are not root)
...
4
votes
1answer
161 views
Completely disable GNOME for my user in Ubuntu
At the office we've been issued laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed. Unity is of course the OS default, but KDE is available. I prefer KDE and so have set KDM and KDE as my defaults. However some GNOME ...
4
votes
2answers
252 views
Permanently switching to zsh in a script, without being root and without being asked for the password
Is there any way to run chsh -s /bin/zsh without being root and without being asked for the password? I want to put it into a non-interactive script that isn't called by root.
3
votes
3answers
82 views
Where are userspace programs supposed to save their logs?
I am writing a script that I want to run without privileges. I want the errors that the script encounters to be logged to some log file. I do not not have privileges to write one to /var/log. And I do ...
3
votes
3answers
2k views
Unable to mount NTFS partition from user account
I'm trying to mount a Windows ntfs partition on openSuse 11.4. When I mount it using the root account (either directly or via sudo) it mounts without problems. But when I try mounting it without any ...
3
votes
1answer
223 views
Route incoming network requests for a given port to different applications
I have an application that listens for connections on a port, but I occasionally take it down for updates and the like. I'd like a way to configure the system such that if that program is running, ...
3
votes
3answers
448 views
Shutting down from X without a desktop environment
I have recently given up my Desktop Environment and am now only using a Window Manager (i3) and X. It all works very well and I do not miss much. Except for one thing: the shutdown button. I can now ...
3
votes
1answer
76 views
update-alternatives just for one user
I'm using a shared server.
On that server different versions of Java are installed:
Selection Path Priority Status
...
3
votes
2answers
721 views
Creating an user without a password
I'm trying to create user without password like this:
sudo adduser \
--system \
--shell /bin/bash \
--gecos ‘User for managing of git version control’ \
--group \
--disabled-password \
...
3
votes
1answer
285 views
Installing Gentoo packages as an ordinary user (non-root)
Is it possible to install Gentoo packages (ebuild-enabled programs, programs with support for portage) as an ordinary user (non-root) to one's own home directory (--prefix=$HOME or sth. like that)?
3
votes
2answers
50 views
How can a user restrict their own group rights without being root?
How can I change my user rights from rwx to r-x at the group level? I'm trying to ensure that I cannot touch any data belonging to other users when I am developing and debugging my scripts. Once I've ...
3
votes
1answer
2k views
Samba mount with password prompt as non-root user
I want to mount a password-protected SMB share (served by a Windows machine). The share is protected by a user name and password, and I may not write the password in a file, I want to be prompted for ...
3
votes
3answers
3k views
Read/Write to a Serial Port Without Root?
I'm writing an application to read/write to/from a serial port in Fedora14, and it works great when I run it as root. But when I run it as a normal user I'm unable to obtain the privileges required to ...
3
votes
2answers
119 views
manage unix user settings across multiple machines
I have many different linux machines with similar "profiles". I want to keep my settings in sync. e.g vimrc, zshrc,. I have the problem that they are various distributions of Linux with various setups ...
3
votes
2answers
209 views
Installing gcc without root?
I'm running OSX, and I don't have root, or an existing compiler. Is there any way I can install gcc?
Are there official or trusted unofficial mach-o binaries that can be downloaded for a certain ...
2
votes
1answer
77 views
Compile a program without sudo access
I am connected to a linux system with SSH in my college. I found that ctorrent is a console alternative of bitorrent. I have downloaded the tar.gz source but to compile/install it needs sudo access
...
2
votes
1answer
559 views
How do I restart apache as non-root (using a git-hook)?
For one specific user I want to be able to restart Apache. This user does have sudo privileges and I could run sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload, but I want to include this restart script in a git ...
2
votes
2answers
697 views
Can I allow a non-root user to log in when /etc/nologin exists?
Suppose a non-root user with sudo privileges executes a delayed shutdown (shutdown +10 or whatever) and logs out. Then, before the shutdown occurs, he wants to log back in and cancel the shutdown. The ...
2
votes
1answer
157 views
dhclient for normal (non-root) users
Calling dhclient as root works beautifully on my debian machine. However, I would like to allow some users to execute dhclient, too. So far, I have tried these two examples:
Example 1: When a normal ...
2
votes
1answer
178 views
Being not admin user how to install local GCC instead of provided?
So I came into my classrom Debian is installed, and gcc 4.1. I want to install (compile from sources is an option - I have time..) for my self GCC 4.7 and adress it in bash as gcc anywhere. Is such ...
2
votes
1answer
88 views
How to achieve the effect of chroot in userspace in Linux (without being root)?
The goal is to install and run programs in a displaced (relocated) distro (whose / must not coincide with the global /) inside a host Linux system. The programs are not adapted for using a different / ...
2
votes
1answer
59 views
How to set up a script to run as root non-interactively?
I need to set up the following script to run as root whenever I log in:
#!/bin/zsh
truncate -s 0 ~yourstruly/.juniper_networks/network_connect/ncsvc.log
I know how to run the script as root ...
2
votes
2answers
746 views
How to set the default gcc version for only one user
I share a server (Ubuntu 11.04) with other people and I am the only one who has to use gcc 4-4 for my code, the rest is using 4.5. I already installed gcc 4.4 but how do I make it the default for me, ...
2
votes
2answers
1k views
Don't require root to add printers
When a user wants to add a new printer it's asking for a root password. I have an LTSP environment and the system is asking for a root password all the time; it's not asking even for a sudo'ed user's ...
2
votes
1answer
155 views
I shouldn't use root on my new ubuntu cloud instance, right?
I am playing with ubuntu on my new Rackspace cloud instance. However, the information they give me is for root access -- that doesn't seem like a best practice for doing development on this thing.
...
2
votes
3answers
611 views
Is there a linux vfs tool that allows bind a directory in different location (like mount --bind) in user space?
For a user process, I want to mount a directory in other location but in user space without root privilieges. Something like mount --bind /origin /dest, but with a vfs wrapper. Like a usermode ...
