[SOLVED] How to get sudo and kdesu to honor my user password?

Question

Hi folks,
Well, I must be missing something. I think I've tried everything listed here https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=143487 and in the referenced links, but I still have the problem of my system rejecting my password for some uses of sudo and kdesu but not others.  I've included my /etc/sudoers file below.
My problem may be due to screwing around with users:  I started out using bruce (1000), then switched to bbraley (1001), then deleted bruce in kusers, then changed bbraley to 1000. When that created more problems without solving the original one, I switched back to 1001.  I've played with adding and removing my user from groups, including creating a sudo group, making sure I am a member of wheel group, etc. 
What seemed to be everyone's magic fix,
pacman -S pambase
didn't work when I tried it successfully with my bbraley password, then later, when that began failing, using the root password. pambase reinstalls, but there is no resulting change in the behavior of sudo.
Side question: Most of my experience is with kubuntu in which I never created a root user and never had any trouble having my user password work with sudo or kdesu. Is there a reason Archwiki beginners guide suggests assigning a separate root account and password?
Can anyone help?
Here's the output of
groups
root adm disk wheel log locate network video audio optical storage scanner power users nm-openconnect systemd-network bbraley sudo sddm
Here's the output of
cat /etc/group |grep `id -un`
root:x:0:bbraley
adm:x:4:root,daemon,bbraley
disk:x:6:root,bbraley
wheel:x:10:root,bbraley
log:x:19:root,bbraley
locate:x:21:bbraley
network:x:90:bbraley
video:x:91:bbraley
audio:x:92:bbraley
optical:x:93:bbraley
storage:x:95:bbraley
scanner:x:96:bbraley
power:x:98:bbraley
users:x:100:bbraley
systemd-network:x:193:bbraley
nm-openconnect:x:104:bbraley
sddm:x:619:bbraley
bbraley:x:500:
sudo:*:501:bbraley
Here's what
ls -l /etc/sudoer
yields:
-r--r----- 1 root root 2948 Mar 22 07:25 /etc/sudoers
And here's my sudoers file:
## Defaults specification
## You may wish to keep some of the following environment variables
## when running commands via sudo.
## Locale settings
# Defaults env_keep += "LANG LANGUAGE LINGUAS LC_* _XKB_CHARSET"
## Run X applications through sudo; HOME is used to find the
## .Xauthority file. Note that other programs use HOME to find
## configuration files and this may lead to privilege escalation!
# Defaults env_keep += "HOME"
## X11 resource path settings
# Defaults env_keep += "XAPPLRESDIR XFILESEARCHPATH XUSERFILESEARCHPATH"
## Desktop path settings
# Defaults env_keep += "QTDIR KDEDIR"
## Allow sudo-run commands to inherit the callers' ConsoleKit session
# Defaults env_keep += "XDG_SESSION_COOKIE"
## Uncomment to enable special input methods. Care should be taken as
## this may allow users to subvert the command being run via sudo.
# Defaults env_keep += "XMODIFIERS GTK_IM_MODULE QT_IM_MODULE QT_IM_SWITCHER"
## Uncomment to enable logging of a command's output, except for
## sudoreplay and reboot. Use sudoreplay to play back logged sessions.
# Defaults log_output
# Defaults!/usr/bin/sudoreplay !log_output
# Defaults!/usr/local/bin/sudoreplay !log_output
# Defaults!REBOOT !log_output
## Runas alias specification
## User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
## Uncomment to allow members of group wheel to execute any command
##%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
## Same thing without a password
%wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
## Uncomment to allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo ALL=(ALL) ALL
bbraley ALL=(ALL) ALL
## Uncomment to allow any user to run sudo if they know the password
## of the user they are running the command as (root by default).
Defaults targetpw # Ask for the password of the target user
ALL ALL=(ALL) ALL # WARNING: only use this together with 'Defaults targetpw'
## Read drop-in files from /etc/sudoers.d
## (the '#' here does not indicate a comment)
#includedir /etc/sudoers.d
Last edited by Bruce1956 (2015-03-28 05:16:03)

Answer 1

Trilby wrote:I've never used the targetpw setting, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the problem.  With that setting, if you want to run something as root (the default use of sudo) then you'd need the root password, not the user password.  Comment out that setting, and the next line.
I had never used it, either, but I misread some reference and thought it might help. Since you say it causes the behaviour I'm trying to eliminate, I will get rid of it, as suggested. However, the behavior preceded my addition of this line in the file, so I don't think this will correct the problem. Edit: Removing it kept the root password from being universally required (I can now edit /etc/sudoers using my user password) and returned it to requiring it sometimes (I still need the root password to use kdesu).
As for some other distro not having a root account, that is simply impossible.  There was a root account.  If you didn't have the password for it, then that installation was severely crippled.
Sorry, you're right. I should have said that kubuntu does not expect users to assign a password to the root account and instead expects primary users to access that account's privileges via su, sudo, or kdesu only.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo
By default, the root account password is locked in Ubuntu. This means that you cannot login as root directly or use the su command to become the root user. However, since the root account physically exists it is still possible to run programs with root-level privileges. This is where sudo comes in - it allows authorized users (normally "Administrative" users; for further information please refer to AddUsersHowto) to run certain programs as root without having to know the root password.
Thanks for responding to my request for help. Any other ideas?
Edit:  Here's what I keep getting that only accepts the root password, not my user password
http://s15.postimg.org/4z0o86oln/Runasroot_KDEsu.png
-- mod edit: read the Forum Etiquette and only post thumbnails http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … s_and_Code [jwr] --
Last edited by Bruce1956 (2015-03-23 04:41:06)