Ubuntu – Why does Ubuntu force users to create a password upon installation

passwordrootusers

There's been one problem I've had since I installed Ubuntu to run alongside Windows, I assume this would also be the same if it was installed to replace the other operating system as well, the installer prompts you to create a password upon typing in the user account name and if you don't put in a password and just put in the user account name, it ends up saying to create a password. My comparison is in Windows and Mac OS X, you are never forced to create a password.

If you remove the password on your Admin account in System Settings > User Accounts, you won't be able to authenticate whenever you try to install something, because it requests for a password and putting in no password at all isn't going to work, it will just act as if you put in an invalid password. This is what I call "getting locked out of privileges".

I'm finding the "Authenticate" window that comes up whenever you install something or accessing somewhere a nuisance, 'cause it always requests for your password.

So my question is – Why does Ubuntu force users to create a password upon installation?

Best Answer

Perhaps the real question should be why is it that Windows or Mac OS X (if that's actually the case, never used it) don't require you to have and use passwords.

You will probably find once you have set your system set up to your satisfaction that the amount of time you have to enter your password decreases substantially, I've been running the development version for months and still only use the password once or twice a day.

The password is there for a reason - so that people accessing your system when you are not aware being unable to damage it.

If you find that you are using it a lot in a terminal run

sudo -i

do what you need to and then exit.

Read up on root and sudo - it's there and won't be going anywhere.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

At the end of the day Linux of any sort is not Windows nor Mac.

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

Related Solutions

Administration – How Ubuntu Decides Which Admin User’s Password to Ask For

First of all let to point out that privileged actions are allowed for a non-root user through two different mechanisms.

sudo
PolicyKit

The first one is used when you explicitly run a command with sudo or a menu item whose command is wrapped with gksu (like Synaptic Package Manager).
In this case the password required is that of the invoking user, usually the user logged in.

The second one is used when a PolicyKit-aware application try to perform a privileged action. In such a case the application asks the PolicyKit Local Authority (through D-Bus) if the action can be executed. The Local Authority then, through an Authentication Agent, asks the active user to prove its identity. The dialog windows is like the following (unfortunately with text in italian :)

enter image description here

You can identify PolicyKit from the little black triangle and the label Details. As you can see, if more that one user is in the admin group, you can choose from the list which user to use for authentication.

Given all this, both sudo and PolicyKit are much more complicated, with respect to the configurations that can be achieved: you can configure action that can be executed without password, executed only by a particular user or group, etc.

Coming to your question, when the mechanism used by the application is PolicyKit, independently from the current logged in user, the password required would be that of Bob or Alice (the only two admin user, if I understand correctly), and you can change from the list which user you want to use for authentication.

When the mechanism used by the application is sudo (for admin tasks performed through GUI this is becoming less frequent), you have no immediate and simple mean to choose the user for authentication.

Ubuntu – Suddenly, I Can’t login with correct password (greeter & tty)

Problem solved.

Here are the actions I carried out before the problem got solved:

In order to revert back to supported gnome packages like nautilus, etc, run

sudo ppa-purge ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3

Create directory /var/lib/samba

sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/samba
sudo smbpasswd -a myusername

Then run

sudo pam-auth-update

All the authentication modules were already selected, so I just clicked okay.

Troubleshooting here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2115288

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Administration – How Ubuntu Decides Which Admin User’s Password to Ask For

Ubuntu – Suddenly, I Can’t login with correct password (greeter & tty)

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