Install software without root?

asked 2018-02-18 02:22:06 -0500

Hi everyone,I'm new to fedora. I met something strange when I am working on it: I logged in as normal user(not root but sudo works),typed "nano" to try to use this editor however it was not on my computer. The command panel reported that nano is not found and after a while it asked me whether to install it. I typed yes and it just start to install it without any password required. Doesn't Software management requires root privileges?

answered 2018-02-18 06:10:40 -0500

FranciscoD_
10447 ●60 ●128 ●194 https://ankursinha.in

Hi! Welcome to AskFedora!

It does, yes, but there are different ways of providing the authentication. One way, which is necessary when using DNF, is to use sudo and then explicitly authenticate. The prompt that you saw was from PackageKit (the plugin is packaged in PackageKit-command-not-found). PackageKit is aimed at end-users that use the GUI. So, Gnome-software, for example, uses PackageKit. PackageKit uses Polkit for authentication. So, if you do have sudo rights and have entered your password once somewhere, PolKit will permit packagekit to run the next command without asking you for your password again. Sudo does something similar. If you use it in quick successsion, you don't have to authenticate each time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polkit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PackageKit

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Thank you so much. How amazing fedora is!

tonyzhao ( 2018-02-18 07:35:02 -0500 )edit

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