Editing Privileged Files from Desktop

[ajax]

The standard for all varieties of Ubuntu seems to be that sudo should be used in preference to running as root. Many of the administrative tools provide an interface that appears to wrap the tool invocation with the execution of sudo. However, the most fundamental administrative tool seems to be missing. How are you supposed to do simple text editing?

On Ubuntu I found that opening a console window and entering the following command works nicely -

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

This led me to the idea that the same thing might work on Kubuntu. In this case the following -

sudo kate /etc/fstab

In fact it does seem to work. However, I'm not sure what to make of the following lines that appear on the console -

ajax@Tester:~$ sudo kate /etc/fstab
[sudo] password for ajax:
Error: "/var/tmp/kdecache-ajax" is owned by uid 1000 instead of uid 0.
Error: "/tmp/kde-ajax" is owned by uid 1000 instead of uid 0.
Error: "/tmp/ksocket-ajax" is owned by uid 1000 instead of uid 0.

Can anyone explain what's going on here?

[aged hippy]

Re: Editing Privileged Files from Desktop

If you press <Alt> + <F2> and type: kdesudo kate /etc/fstab Kate will open the file.

kdesudo should be used for applications, i believe.

[dibl]

Re: Editing Privileged Files from Desktop

Yes, kdesudo is the prefix for graphical/kde apps, like kate. It can be run in the Alt-F2 window.

sudo is the prefix for command line commands and apps, like nano.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Editing Privileged Files from Desktop

Sigh - so you still have to use CLI...

Why not make it soooooo much simpler? Right-click in Dolphin, Open as root (kdesudo)... THAT would be an elegant GUI way of doing it.

Can this be done by writing a plugin somehow?

[flarson]

Re: Editing Privileged Files from Desktop

Just for you Oceanwatcher

***************************************
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Service
ServiceTypes=KonqPopupMenu/Plugin
MimeType=all/allfiles;
Actions=rootKate;
Encoding=UTF-8
ExcludeServiceTypes=application/x-iso,kdedevice/*,inode/directory

[Desktop Action rootKate]
Name=Edit as Root
Exec=kdesudo kate %f
Icon=attach
*************************************************

put the part between asterisks in a file called RootKate.desktop and put it in
/usr/share/kde4/services/ServiceMenus

Close dolphin and reopen it. Right click on any file and look under Actions for Edit as Root.
Enjoy

[flarson]

Re: Editing Privileged Files from Desktop

For a little more accurate mimetypes you could use this one.
************************************************** *******************
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Service
ServiceTypes=KonqPopupMenu/Plugin
MimeType=text/plain;text/x-makefile;text/x-c++hdr;text/x-c++src;text/x-chdr;text/x-csrc;text/x-java;text/x-moc;text/x-pascal;text/x-tcl;text/x-tex;application/x-shellscript;text/x-patch;text/x-adasrc;text/x-chdr;text/x-csrc;text/css;application/x-desktop;text/x-patch;text/x-fortran;text/html;text/x-java;text/x-tex;text/x-makefile;text/x-objcsrc;text/x-pascal;application/x-perl;application/x-perl;application/x-php;text/vnd.wap.wml;text/x-python;application/x-ruby;text/sgml;application/xml;model/vrml;
Actions=rootKate;
Encoding=UTF-8
ExcludeServiceTypes=application/x-iso,kdedevice/*,inode/directory

[Desktop Action rootKate]
Name=Edit as Root
Exec=kdesudo kate %f
Icon=attach
************************************************** ***************

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Editing Privileged Files from Desktop

That, my friend, was pure genius! And waaay beyond anything I would ever be able to figure out without a few years of only studying Linux!

Thank you. You just made my life editing textfiles a lot easier!

[flarson]

Re: Editing Privileged Files from Desktop

Glad I could help. Actually someone called g. in this forum has been mentioning this and piquing my interest, so you can thank him. Also the KDE people who developed the framework that makes it work.

[kubicle]

Re: Editing Privileged Files from Desktop

Sigh - so you still have to use CLI...

Why not make it soooooo much simpler? Right-click in Dolphin, Open as root (kdesudo)... THAT would be an elegant GUI way of doing it.

Can this be done by writing a plugin somehow?

There are also a few servicemenus available from kde-apps/kde-look that allow that (and doing other things as root from the right-click menu).

Yes, shameless advertising, as one of them was written by me :P.
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show...?content=48411
Rog has kindly packaged it in his ppa for easy installation (on intrepid and jaunty):
https://launchpad.net/~samrog131/+archive/ppa