File work, as root

[Qqmike]

Requesting a quick checkup on a fav subject, Dolphin as root (admin privileges).

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...-administrator
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...oot-workaround
- etc. -

-- So, the current status is you can't open Dolphin using kdesudo, sudo su, sudo -i. (I see the security message/advisory, upon trying)
-- There is the pkexec workaround.
-- krusader has the option Tools > run as root.

That about right? ... well, not "right," but "correct"?

Occasionally, I only need-want to see what's in /boot/esp/EFI (and rarely, sometimes, to modify the contents of that folder, experimenting, etc.).
=> krusader looks ok to me, for such work.

(I just built a new PC, as some of you know, and am setting up 20.04 for the first time; been a little on the sidelines just simply running 18.04 uneventfully. Thus, the questions & double-checking a few things.)

[Bings]

Midnight Commander is great. Much better for moving large amounts of stuff than dolphin as well.

[claydoh]

Opening and saving files do not require root privileges up front - you get a prompt for the password when saving, if Kate or Kwrite are used to open the file.

Using Dolphin to create/delete/rename them in this fashion is not there yet (and has been dragging for quite some time, for whatever reasons.
But:
pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5 KDE_FULL_SESSION=true dolphin

I myself agree with MC for this sort of thing, when needed.

[Qqmike]

Hmmm ... my reply to Bings disappeared ... ?

[Snowhog]

As you have experienced ‘odd’ things here, I might suggest that I do for you, what I did for oshunluvr; crest a new account, merge your existing account into the new, then rename the new account to the original. The anomaly that oshunluvr was experiencing was fixed doing this.

[Qqmike]

OK, Snowhog (Post #5). Sounds good to me!

[Fred47]

Open Dolphin as Root with the service menu https://store.kde.org/p/1384645/

[Qqmike]

Thanks for this, Fred47. Could be a good option. I think for myself, Krusader is enough for now, and I do understand it better. Editing files is easy, as many have said, where Kate will ask your admin pw. Other than that, I * may * only "need-want" to get into the ESP to goof around. Thanks, this could be good info for others here.

[jlittle]

Occasionally, I only need-want to see what's in /boot/esp/EFI (and rarely, sometimes, to modify the contents of that folder, experimenting, etc.).

Sorry, I should have spotted this note earlier.

The ESP is a FAT32 (or some variation on that) partition that has no permissions in the file system. The permissions Linux uses are set at mount time. In my /etc/fstab I have the line

LABEL=EFI      /boot/efi   vfat    umask=000,noatime,noauto,user  0   1

That "umask=000" determines the permissions everything in the ESP gets, in the same reverse way the umask shell built-in does; 000 implies 777, or rwxrwxrwx.

(Change "LABEL=EFI" to "UUID=xxxx-xxxx" if you want to make things harder for yourself, or if there's multiple ESPs in your system with the same label. The noauto,user options mean the ESP is not mounted until I want it; this stops updates from messing with my boot.)

[Qqmike]

Thanks, jlittle. Yes, very helpful. Actually, it brought back memories. In the past, we’ve really hit this subject hard. One option has always been to get root, sudo -i (for GUI), and go from there. That option no longer works for security reasons. But kubicle had mentioned two things: (1) Krusader; (2) umask 0022. Here, let me just paste it in, and you’ll see the discussion (at that time):

# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
# This statement only gives read/write access to root:
# UUID=C896-1CFF /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1
# NOTE: Next line gives full permissions to everyone on /boot/efi:
# UUID=C896-1CFF /boot/efi vfat umask=0000 0 1
# Note, kubicle: If you are going to edit the efi fstab umask, it would be safer to use umask=0022,
# which doesn't give straight write access...
# you could still open the files with normal (not root) kate since it has read access,
# and it should still ask for password when you try to save, like this:
UUID=C896-1CFF /boot/efi vfat umask=0022 0 1

This is what you are saying, or getting at.

First, this won’t work: sudo chmod -v -R 777 /boot/efi
Output: mode of '/boot/efi/EFI' changed from 0700 (rwx------) to 0777 (rwxrwxrwx)
Chmod won’t work on FAT32; it will not override the fstab permissions. The output of chmod looks good, but it doesn’t work.

Btw, here’s a cheet sheet I have used for umask, also what you are saying:

	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
r	+	+	+	+	–	–	–	–
w	+	+	–	–	+	+	–	–
x	+	–	+	–	+	–	+	–

It works as the normal octal permissions but subtracted from 7, and use the absolute value. for instance if you want to set the permissions to 0777 you will need to set it 0000 in the umask(e.g. umask=0000), if you want to set it to 0755 you will set it to 0022.
The first character represents that its an octal permissions
The second is for the owner
The third is the group
The last is for other or The World


=> I think using krusader as root (Tools > Open krusader as root) is all I need for now. I will rarely go into the ESP, and then only briefly to see or edit or drop something in there.

Many thanks, jlittle, for your post; great reminder! I very rarely do work like this (e.g., with umask), and so I can’t remember all these details (actually, I * refuse * to remember ;-) )