Chapter 13. Administrative Tasks

Table of Contents

Granting or Restricting Administrative Access to a User
Using Sudo at the Command Line

For security reasons, administrative tasks in Xubuntu can only be performed by users with special administrative privileges. The first user account created during installation will, by default, be able to perform administrative tasks.

When you run an application that requires administrative privileges, you will be asked to enter your user password. This helps to protect your system from malicious files and accidentally selecting options which may change the way your system works.

Each time you type your password, the system remembers it for 15 minutes so that you do not have to type it again.

Granting or Restricting Administrative Access to a User

You can restrict and enable administrative access (sudo) to users with the Users and Groups application:

  1. Click ApplicationsSystemUsers and Groups

  2. Select the user whose account type you want to change and press the Change... button directly across from Account type: field.

  3. Enter your password if prompted to do so.

  4. Select the Administrator option if you want to grant the user administative access to the computer or select Desktop user option if you want to limit the user's capabilities.

  5. Press OK to apply the selected changes.

[Note]

You can further expand or contract a user's capabilities on the computer by clicking Advanced SettingsUser Privileges and then selecting or deselecting the listed capabilities.