Can I remove my password?

Question

I have to input my password when I try to download something and when I open Software Manager. Is there any way that I can skip that?

I was using the command line to download f.lux, and it was weird that I had to keep giving my password when I have to add or remove a program. My laptop is at home 24/7 and a password can't protect my laptop from (physical) theft so I usually don't keep one. I just made the jump from Windows (10) so could you guys keep it a little simple?

Solution

Yes you can remove your password from popup authentication, as well as remove passwords in general or your keyring. I would not recommend any of this as it is a security risk however if you wish you can follow the following after typing sudo visudo

NOPASSWD

If you don’t want to be prompted for any password while running sudo then we can use the NOPASSWD parameter on a particular entry:

admin ALL = NOPASSWD: ALL

this parameter is the opposite of the default PASSWD and will no longer require any password for the user “admin” while running 'sudo'. This can be of useful while running scripts that will launch 'sudo' (in this case I would recommend to enable NOPASSWD only for the needed commands), or just if you don’t want to keep typing the password. Obviously with this commodity, you will reduce the security of sudo: if someone hacks the “admin” account then this can be easily used to gain root privileges.

Authenticate

Another option that can be used to control the prompt for a password is the global flag: authenticate. This is by default ON and this means that it will ask the user to authenticate with a password. This can be overwritten as seen above with the 'NOPASSWD' on a particular entry. If we want to disable it globally, this can be done with:

Defaults    !authenticate

Once set, this will disable authentication for all users that use the defaults like our “admin” sample from above. It can be overwritten on particular definition by setting the 'PASSWD' parameter:

admin    ALL=(ALL) PASSWD: ALL

Note: this post doesn’t recommend you to disable the passwords usage in sudo (this is not a good idea, by the way), but just to show you what options are available and how you can use them. Knowing the security implications of disabling password usage in sudo, use them wisely based on your particular needs.

Comments

[Jeff Schaller]

I don't use mint, so I'm not sure, but it might be using sudoers; you could add a NOPASSWD flag to your sudoers entry, if so.

[terdon]

Please edit your question and include i) what graphical environment you are using; ii) How you are downloading. From your browser? The command line? What are you downloading? Yes, you can skip entering your password when you open the Software Manager (although it's not a good idea, do you really want anyone to be ab;e to install/remove software from your machine?). If you edit your question to give the details I asked for, we should be able to help.

[Ballom]

This is what I get when I input "sudo visudo": ___ ~/Desktop $ sudo visudo NOPASSWD..... [sudo] password for ___: ..... usage: visudo [-chqsV] [-f sudoers] [-x file]...... am I doing it right?

[DnrDevil]

Yes it simply telling you what yoi can do with root you are editing sudoers. You may also run with sudo su

[Ballom]

oook then.... I just made the jump from W10 -> Linux and didnt think that linux could this easily get corrupted.... this is turning out to be harder than I expected it to be....