this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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[SOLVED] Weird root permission issue on Sway which is not present in i3 (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by xavier666@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Hello fellow lemmings

I am a long-time i3 user and have decided to switch to Sway. I have encountered a weird error which has left me utterly bamboozled.

I am using Ubuntu 24.04 which has gone from 20.04 -> 22.04 -> 24.04. It has Ubuntu-Gnome, i3 and Sway currently installed.

The issue

The error that I'm facing is when I'm using Sway, I simply don't have sudo access.

This is what the error looks like

$ sudo visudo
[sudo] password for xavier666:
Sorry, user xavier666 is not allowed to execute '/usr/sbin/visudo' as root on <HOSTNAME>.

When I switch back to i3, my permissions are fine for the same user. I have not done any crazy modifications to the sudoer's file as far as I can remember.

PS: I have added a command to no-sudo xavier666 ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/brightnessctl

The "fix"

I temporarily solved it by adding xavier666 ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL to the sudoer's file.

IMO, I think this should not be required. I don't remember ever adding the default user to the file for all the installations that I have done. (But this is the first time I've installed Sway)

Logs/Outputs

Running sudo -l without the fix (on Sway)

Matching Defaults entries for xavier666 on <HOSTNAME>:
    env_reset, mail_badpass,
    secure_path=/usr/local/sbin\:/usr/local/bin\:/usr/sbin\:/usr/bin\:/sbin\:/bin\:/snap/bin,
    use_pty

User xavier666 may run the following commands on <HOSTNAME>:
    (root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/brightnessctl

When I run the same command on i3, i get this (ALL : ALL) ALL extra line in the output. And when I run sudo -l with my fix on Sway, (ALL : ALL) ALL is present and the permission issue is fixed.

What is causing Sway to remove the root permission for the user?

Note: I'm just asking for the standard sudo behaviour. I'm not trying to run GUI applications as root.

Edit:

The issue was caused by swhkd. It was installed as a setuid binary (as instructed by the developer of the project). Once I switched back to sway's default keybinds and disabled swhkd, the permissions were back to normal. I removed my previous "fix" in the sudoers list and I still have sudo access.

Thanks a lot everyone and specially @gnuhaut@lemmy.ml for pointing me in the right direction.

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[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

In that case Ubuntu DOES things differently. And weirdly imho, there's no reason for the normal user to be in the root group since they still need privilege escalation to edit system files.

If you use visudo to edit /etc/sudoers you don't have to worry about the syntax.

FWIW, this is what my perfectly healthy system looks like:

$ sudo grep -vE '^[[:space:]]*#|^[[:space:]]*$' /etc/sudoers
Defaults	env_reset
Defaults	mail_badpass
Defaults	secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"
Defaults	use_pty
root	ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
%sudo	ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
@includedir /etc/sudoers.d

$ groups
a_norny_mousse adm dialout fax cdrom floppy tape sudo audio dip video plugdev netdev bluetooth lpadmin scanner

You will notice that my user is in the sudo group; this is enough to give them admin rights as per sudoers.

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The output of the above command is nearly the same for me.

Even though I have manually added myself to /etc/sudoers file, my groups output is very weird. It's just xavier666 root

Kind of stumped here.

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

Even though I have manually added myself to /etc/sudoers file, my groups output is very weird.

One has nothing to do with the other.

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

I was experimenting. This might be helpful (https://lemm.ee/post/62662283/20097388)