> > I am not entirely sure what you are trying to do.   When you first
> install gdm in blfs, you create a user "gdm" with group "gdm" this is what
> it is run as.  In all my years of using gnome, and it is around 30 years, I
> have never heard of having a separate administrator account for gdm.
> >
> > All that the main stream distros like debian and fedora do, for their
> "administrator" accounts is to add the user to the wheel and in the case of
> fedora to the sudoers file.  In the past, the do gooders that developed
> gdm/gnome and also KDE dictated that root login was not allowed, despite
> the fact that they do not own the hardware, and there fore have absolutely
> no right to push this down peoples throats.  This may have been loosened up
> a little, because in the case of kde they hard code it into the code base,
> and check if the id is set to root, and then would not allow you to login.
>
> As is the case when doing a quick search, a better result is found, this
> time on gnome's wiki:
>
> https://help.gnome.org/admin/gdm/stable/security.html.en


Hi Christopher,

I may use your first link as a possible workaround, but just to reiterate I
am not trying to login to GNOME using root. I am trying to give my standard
account "user" the ability to edit the settings within GNOME Control Center
and elsewhere within GDM.

On my Ubuntu system, the Authentication window will pop up (i.e. when
accessing GParted) and my user account password will allow access. I assume
this is because said user is part of the "sudo" group. Furthermore, my user
account is listed as "Administrator" in GNOME Control Center and I am able
to click the "unlock" button to make changes to user accounts (i.e. change
an account from "Standard" to "Administrator). I never had to manually
change this user in GNOME from standard to admin because it was already
Adminstrator from the get-go.

In contrast, my LFS system has root login disabled by default (as it should
for security reasons), and I can login no problem using my "user" standard
account I created during the build. This user is added to the "wheel" group
and the Sudo package is installed to allow root access through the wheel
group.

Furthermore, I can run commands in the terminal application using "sudo"
with my regular user. However, I cannot change any settings in GNOME
Control Center (such as editing user accounts) by clicking the "unlock"
button or open certain programs because the popup Authentication window in
GDM refuses my user's password and the root account password. I understand
why root's password wouldn't work seeing as I have disabled root login. And
I assume that I cannot enter my user password in the Authentication window
because the user account is listed as "Standard" in GNOME Control Center
instead of "Administrator."

So I am trying to figure out how to set the necessary permissions so that
my created user account is able to authenticate in the popup window in
GNOME since apparently being in the "wheel" group is not enough besides
having to allow root login in GNOME just to change the user account from
"Standard" to "Administrator" in GNOME Control Center. It seems likely that
I missed a step or made an error possibly when setting up PAM with GDM or
something, but I am not sure what that would be.

Thanks,

Jared Stevens
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