Sudo privileges disabled

General Help
1

Yesterday I was trying to enable my fingerprint that was disabled when I recently shifted from windows to this awesome zorin os. As I was trying to enable it using AI Support. I entered some commands and after wards, I did a reboot. After the reboot, I could login as usual BUT the problem comes with installing or updating packages with sudo previleges ofcourse. When I try to enter the password that I use during login from boot, It is fully disabled and no further actions I can do with it. Please help me rescue my computer and work too. Thanks!

BELOW ARE THE COMMANDS THAT I ENTERED : : GIVEN BY CHAT GPT
I suspect them to be the potential causes of the issue.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libpam-fprintd fprintd
fprintd-enroll
sudo nano /etc/pam.d/common-auth
auth required pam_fprintd.so
sudo systemctl restart systemd-user-sessions
lsusb
dmesg | grep -i finger
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install fprintd
sudo systemctl restart fprintd
fprintd-enroll
sudo nano /etc/pam.d/common-auth
auth required pam_fprintd.so
sudo systemctl restart systemd-user-sessions
dmesg | grep -i finger
journalctl -xe | grep -i fprintd
sudo systemctl status fprintd
sudo systemctl start fprintd
fprintd-enroll
sudo nano /etc/pam.d/common-auth
auth required pam_fprintd.so
sudo systemctl restart systemd-user-sessions
journalctl -xe | grep -i fprintd
sudo apt remove --purge fprintd
sudo apt install fprintd
sudo apt remove --purge libpam-fprintd
sudo apt install libpam-fprintd
sudo reboot
2

No matter how much the media likes to portrait GPT models as some strange know-it-all entity... it only generates text to produce answers within context, but completely disregards its accuracy or veracity of what it spits out.
There's a reason many companies forbid the use of this technology; it's dangerous, and is no different than copying code from some obscure website written by some stranger online.

I would suggest you re-install and follow these instructions to enable fingerprint reader. There are also a number of threads on the forum that you can search for with already some suggestions as to what to try and what information to provide in order to further troubleshoot this.

1 Like
3

No, thanks! I mentioned that the sudo previleges are not working. ie; When I type any command with sudo, The password that I use to login from boot is not applicable to the terminal to unlock sudo functionalities. Forexample;

jaz@jaz-ThinkBook-14-G2-ITL:~$ sudo pam-auth-update
[sudo] password for jaz:         
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for jaz:         
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for jaz:         
sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts
jaz@jaz-ThinkBook-14-G2-ITL:~$
5

What changes did you make to /etc/pam.d/common-auth?

6

yeah. It won't prompt me to do any thing. Instead it reverts.

7

Man, I don't know the exact task I did since I was just migrating from Windows. So I didn't know what to exactly do since I was blindly directed by CHAT GPT. But when I type /etc/pam.d/common-auth,
The command tells me that permission denied.

8

Anything in /etc is usually locked by the real 'root' which is hidden from the user. The only way to access such items is to 'chmod' or 'chown' (change ownership) from 'root' to your user.
For example, temporarily take ownership of /etc/pam.d/common-auth

cd .. twice to get out of your user and /home
then
cd etc
cd pam.d
sudo chown [your username] common-auth

then once modified, give back to root (replace your username with root).

You need to remember that fingerprint readers present on Windows computers will not have Linux drivers for them. thinkpenguin.com sell a USB fingerprint reader that work under the Linux kernel, but only from Ubuntu 22.04 up. This will not be possible in Zorin until version 17 is released.

9

Did every thing as said and got this: :

jaz@jaz-ThinkBook-14-G2-ITL:/$ cd etc
jaz@jaz-ThinkBook-14-G2-ITL:/etc$ cd pam.d
jaz@jaz-ThinkBook-14-G2-ITL:/etc/pam.d$ sudo chown jaz common-auth
[sudo] password for jaz:         
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for jaz:         
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for jaz:         
sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts
jaz@jaz-ThinkBook-14-G2-ITL:/etc/pam.d$

Still not able to enter the password for sudo user

10

sudo password is your login password. If it says sorry, then it's a typo (usually).

11

Yeah! Exactly that is the issue I am having. I login as usual when i just boot my computer BUT when I use the same password I used to login from boot, The process reverts .. even when it just gets locked.

12

I'm wondering if the X.authority file is corrupt (this usually causes login loop error). Use the guide on how to do this from page 180 of the Unofficial manual that I wrote for Zorin 15.

Keep us posted.

13

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