t. scott urban wrote:
This is a feature - gnome implemented something like ssh-agent. After entering root password to configure things, gnome keeps the password for you for a short time so that you can make other system changes.
If you have the notification area panel applet running, you should see a set of keys icon show up there after you entered root's password. As long as you see that icon, you have access to the system tools from the menu without the entering the password again.
You don't have access to root privileges in general, though, as you found, only applications started via gnome.
If you're worried about leaving you terminal unattended, you can click on the keys icon and tell it to forget the password.
afair it is
$ rpm -qf `which pam-panel-icon ` usermode-gtk-1.74-1
it seems that the key-icon is not displayed if you execude a root-application from the gnome-terminal.
it would be nice if someone could give me a hint how to change/control the time for "keeping authorization" for this one because there is no visual control.
The posting at http://www.spinics.net/lists/pam/msg03703.html suggests that this is a non-trivial thing to change.
Paul.
