How-To Start Firestarter GUI w/o password

[SqRt7744]

I have been plagued for months by the firestarter gui constantly requiring a password when I log in to my Gnome session. I finally found the solution in the french ubuntu forums! It is simple enough:

First, system->preferences->sessions, click on the startup programs tab and add:

sudo firestarter --start-hidden

(I had gksudo firestarter previously so that it would start at all).

Now edit /etc/sudoers (after backing it up as /etc/sudoers.bak). The file claims that it should only be edited with "visudo". I'm skeptical, but whoever wrote that in the file presumably had a good reason to do so. To be safe I will follow advice and use visudo here:

sudo cp /etc/sudoers /etc/sudoers.bak
export VISUAL="vim"
sudo visudo

the /etc/sudoers file will be opened by vi. Press the 'i' key to change to insert mode, navigate to the 'defaults' line, and change it so it looks like this:

Defaults        !lecture,tty_tickets,!fqdn,env_reset,env_keep+="DISPLAY HOME XAUTHORIZATION"

Finally, at the bottom of the file, add a line which reads:

your_user_name ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/firestarter

where you replace "your_user_name" with, well, your user name.
Save and exit by pressing the escape key followed by ZZ (that is the shift key+2 presses of the z key)
Your woes should now be a thing of the past!

I have heard that xlibs will be included with the final release of Dapper. If you do not have it yet, I beleive it must be installed for this how-to to work, as some people seem to have been having issues relating to xlibs. If that is the case for you please install it manually like this:

wget http://www.artfiles.org/ubuntu.com/archive/pool/main/x/xorg/xlibs_6.8.2-77_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i xlibs_6.8.2-77_all.deb

If you encounter problems (eg. typo in the sudoers file), you must become root either by rebooting into recovery mode or by typing su (if you have set a password for root) and type

cp /etc/sudoers.bak /etc/sudoers

This will restore the sudoers file back to its original state.

[chadk]

I get a "you are changing a read only file" when I try to edit etc/sudoers -- so I used :w! to force it to save (I think)?

Didn't work for me though. So I tried to remove firestarter:
chad@figment:~$ sudo apt-get remove firestarter
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Package firestarter is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Well I installed it again and it let me remove it.

[xXx 0wn3d xXx]

Thanks for this tutorial. Firestarter will finally start automatically
Edit: I get an Xlib display error when launching synptic/update manager. I had to reboot into recovery mode and edit my sudoers file to fix it. Is this a problem with my install or does adding to the defaults of the sudoers file cause this ?

[SqRt7744]

I get a "you are changing a read only file" when I try to edit etc/sudoers -- so I used :w! to force it to save (I think)?

Didn't work for me though. So I tried to remove firestarter:
chad@figment:~$ sudo apt-get remove firestarter
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Package firestarter is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Well I installed it again and it let me remove it.

Ack! You may have forgotten to type "sudo visudo". I.e., the file isn't read only for root! After editing, press 'esc' then ':wq'. ...that should take you back to command mode, write, then quit. If it still gives you the read only warning, then something is wrong with the permissions, try

sudo chmod 600 /etc/sudoers

Also, you didn't have firestarter installed to begin with, no wonder it didn't work! You have to install it!

sudo apt-get install firestarter

You may have to enable the universe repository in synaptic first though... not sure.

[SqRt7744]

Thanks for this tutorial. Firestarter will finally start automatically
Edit: I get an Xlib display error when launching synptic/update manager. I had to reboot into recovery mode and edit my sudoers file to fix it. Is this a problem with my install or does adding to the defaults of the sudoers file cause this ?

Now that's the strangest thing. Works fine for me... Here's my sudoers file for comparison:

# /etc/sudoers
#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
# Host alias specification

# User alias specification

# Cmnd alias specification

# Defaults

Defaults        !lecture,tty_tickets,!fqdn,env_reset,env_keep+="DISPLAY HOME XAUTHORIZATION"
# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL
sqrt7744 ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/firestarter

You may also want to try installing xlibs:

wget http://www.artfiles.org/ubuntu.com/archive/pool/main/x/xorg/xlibs_6.8.2-77_all.deb

followed by

sudo dpkg -i xlibs_6.8.2-77_all.deb

[testube_babies]

I have a question that may or may not be appropriate to ask here. Why do you use sudo firestarter instead of gksudo firestarter?

[vaskark]

Ouch. I effed up somehow, and my /etc/sudoers file cannot be accessed now. This is what I get at the CLI:

[vaskark@dapper ~]# sudo visudo
sudo: unknown defaults entry `fqdni' referenced near line 16
sudo: parse error in /etc/sudoers near line 15
Broken pipe

Does anyone know how I can fix this? Until I do I guess I won't be running anything with root priviledges. Thanks.

[Burgundavia]

Just as a note, you do NOT need Firestarter to be running for your firewall to be running. Firestarter is only a monitoring app.

Corey

[SqRt7744]

Ouch. I effed up somehow, and my /etc/sudoers file cannot be accessed now. This is what I get at the CLI:

[vaskark@dapper ~]# sudo visudo
sudo: unknown defaults entry `fqdni' referenced near line 16
sudo: parse error in /etc/sudoers near line 15
Broken pipe

Does anyone know how I can fix this? Until I do I guess I won't be running anything with root priviledges. Thanks.

Yes, you did indeed. A typo! "fqdni" should read "fqdn". In any case, you have to fix it first, but apparently you can't use sudo to do it, so copy down the correct line onto paper, reboot, go into recovery mode. this will take you to a root terminal. type

EITHER:
vim /etc/sudoers
press i to enter insert mode, fix your typo, press 'esc', ZZ. Done! Reboot and sudo should work again for you.
OR:
pico /etc/sudoers
this might be more natural to you. I like vim, but many do not. pico is more intuitive.

[SqRt7744]

I have a question that may or may not be appropriate to ask here. Why do you use sudo firestarter instead of gksudo firestarter?

gksudo brings up a box into which you type your sudo password, you encounter it for example when you load synaptic. Since we have killed the necessity to enter a password to load the firestarter GUI, we no longer need gksudo. sudo gives firestarter root priveleges without the necessity of a password being entered at all.