Not authorized to control networking

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To fix this problem, it should be enough to add your user to the network or netdev group. To do it, you can use the GUI in the settings menu (that cog in the top right), or just type something like this in a terminal:

sudo usermod -G netdev -a yourusername

Remember to logout/login again to update your user privileges.

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Dale Amon
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Dale Amon

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

  • Dale Amon
    Dale Amon over 1 year

    I have Ubuntu 13.04 Gnome with Mate.

    If I click on the networking icon on the top tool bar and try to do something like add a never before used Wifi or simply click Hardwire Connection 1 when I have changed to a new network, I get 'Connection activation failed. (32) Not authorized to control networking.'

    My presumption is that I have lacking some group attribute for my user or else there is some security setting.

    I can make the changes if I log in as root instead of myself.

    What must be tweaked to allow my user name the privileges to handle this?

  • Eliah Kagan
    Eliah Kagan almost 11 years
    I've approved an edit changing the group from network to netdev. (The edit was anonymous; it may have been from gerlos not logged in, or anyone else on the Internet. gerlos: Please feel free to roll this back or edit further.) It makes another important change--it adds the -a flag. Without -a you'd be removed from all other groups (if adding you to the named group succeeded). But I don't know if netdev will work for this either; none of my Ubuntu systems (including 13.04) have either group.
  • Ken Williams
    Ken Williams over 10 years
    I have the same problem as @DaleAmon, but this doesn't seem to fix it. Still get the same error even when I try to select an existing wireless network.
  • mchid
    mchid over 7 years
    @KenWilliams askubuntu.com/questions/668411/… Also, log out and then back in.
  • Zimano
    Zimano almost 6 years
    Didn't help for me.
  • gerlos
    gerlos almost 6 years
    @Zimano on which Ubuntu release are you trying this?
  • Zimano
    Zimano almost 6 years
    @gerlos Hey, my comment was quite short. I wrote it at work while scanning answers. I tried this on Raspbian. I installed NetworkManager and had been using it to develop with in Qt. Eventually, this problem arose when trying to run the application with different user levels. What helped for me was to add a PolicyKit rule for NetworkManager. See this answer: askubuntu.com/questions/668411/…
  • gerlos
    gerlos almost 6 years
    @Zimano you're right - actually the management of these privileges changed in the years - to help future readers it's always important to specify which release we are talking of (Ubuntu 13.04 in this topic).
  • Eleanor Holley
    Eleanor Holley over 3 years
    Since there's some uncertainty, I just want to confirm that using "netdev" like in the edit above worked perfectly for me on Ubuntu Mate 20.04.