Running firefox as a different user

I'm trying to run firefox as a different user for security reasons, and I've almost got it except for one fatal snag: I can't get sudo to run without a password. Here's what I'm trying:

I have a user ff setup with its own home directory, and my sudoers file looks something like this:

gaten   ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/firefox

I try the following:

sudo -u ff -H /usr/bin/firefox

gaten   ALL=(ff) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/firefox
gaten   ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/firefox

To recap, I'm trying to allow my user (gaten) to run /usr/bin/firefox using the command

sudo -u ff -H /usr/bin/firefoxwithout prompting for a password (as it's in a shell script and I don't want to enter my password everytime I run firefox).

I think your sudoers user entry is mixed up. All of the examples you gave are giving the user "gaten" permission to run firefox. But your command line example is trying as user "ff".

Change the sudoers line to:

ff ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/firefox

• or -

try this as the command:

sudo -u gaten -H /usr/bin/firefox

 ff   ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/firefox

Sorry, forgot to mention this line is already in my sudoers file.

And I don't want to do this:

 sudo -u gaten -H /usr/bin/firefox

Because that will run the command as the user gaten, which is my normal user. I want to run firefox as user ff.

I just set up a test and it works for me if I do this, assuming I am logged in as gaten. Add this line to the /etc/sudoers file:

ff ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/firefox

Run this from the command line:

$ sudo -u ff -H /usr/bin/firefox

This works for me with the exception of the of the X security. As gaten, I need to run:

$ xhost +

Still doesn't work for me. Make sure you issue an ``` sudo -k

and try it again. the **-k** switch tells sudo to invalidate your sudo timestamp.

Also, a safer option for xhost would be

xhost +local:ff

as **xhost +** gives access to anyone from anywhere, while **xhost +local:ff** only gives local access to user **ff**. 

This is really starting to irk me, it should be so simple but it's not working. I'm wondering if I don't have some odd config somewhere.

You are right about the "-k" switch. When I did that, it must invalidate an older sudo session and forced the password on me.

Check this out. I've never had to do this on Gentoo or FC, but I found a post on a SUSE board and this works for me!

gaten ALL = (ff) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/firefox

This says that "gaten" is allowed to run firefox with no password as user "ff".

Does this work?

Nope, if you look at my first post that's one of the first ones I tried (the first, I think).

This just seems really odd, as the format for the sudoers file is such

user HOST=[RUNAS USER] [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

I'm at a loss. Anything of interest in your /var/log/auth.log file? It might detail what's causing it.