temporary unrestricted

[pbrundog]

is there a way to (as a non-superuser) become a temporary superuser? what I mean by this is: is there a way to change the setup so I can perform all actions (in a graphical interface even) as tho I were the root user?

I know how to open a terminal and use su to get the permission to do whatever in the terminal, but if I want to be able to do anything outside the terminal for only a short period, how would I do that?

[bytesniper]

when you authenticate into anything in the gui (i know kde does this.. not sure aboutg gnome) then it has a timeout period of 5 minutes, i believe. so if you open, for example, system-config-display and auth as superuser than for the next 5 min i believe you can use anything else only a superuser would be able to use without authenticating. please someone correct me if im misinformed

[pbrundog]

Originally Posted by bytesniper

when you authenticate into anything in the gui (i know kde does this.. not sure aboutg gnome) then it has a timeout period of 5 minutes, i believe. so if you open, for example, system-config-display and auth as superuser than for the next 5 min i believe you can use anything else only a superuser would be able to use without authenticating. please someone correct me if im misinformed

ok, so how exactly could I take this and make it work for the whole system? (i.e. being able to transfer files from one location to another)?

[CuCullin]

Are you looking for a GUI solution?

http://xsu.sourceforge.net/ might be something you'd be interested in.

[tejas]

what I do is this:

add the user as no password to the sudoers list

then press alt-f2

run command comes up. I type:
sudo konqueror
or
sudo nautilius

and it opens a manager with su permission

[pbrundog]

these work great (at my work) and if I can get FC4 working at my house before I throw my computer off a cliff I'll use these methods there too