Unrestricted Admin Mode

Kicksecure ™

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• Default Passwords
• Passwords
• User Management
• Login
• Login Spoofing
• Safely Use Root Commands
• sysmaint user
• Unrestricted Admin Mode
• Protection against Physical Attacks
• User Account Isolation (developers)
• user-sysmaint-split (developers)

Kicksecure can be configured for unrestricted admin mode.

In this mode, traditional access to privilege escalation tools such as sudo and pkexec is possible for the Kicksecure default limited account user.

Most other operating systems do not even call this "unrestricted admin mode" because they do not come with user-sysmaint-split by default. In such systems, unrestricted admin mode is implied. However, Kicksecure provides the flexibility to switch between user-sysmaint-split and unrestricted admin mode depending on your needs.

Starting from Kicksecure version TODO Xfce and above, Kicksecure comes with user-sysmaint-split by default.

Uninstalling user-sysmaint-split and Enabling Unrestricted Admin Mode

This chapter documents how to disable user-sysmaint-split and revert to unrestricted admin mode, where the user user can use sudo.

Optional. Discouraged.

Warning: Reverting to unrestricted admin mode increases the risk of privilege escalation attacks and may weaken system security.

If user-sysmaint-split is installed by default, the easiest way to remove it is by using dummy-dependency to avoid meta-package removal issues (Debian Packages).

dummy-dependency user-sysmaint-split

Impact

This removes the sysmaint mode related GRUB boot menu modifications and reverts back to a "normal" boot menu.

Security impact?

Optional Restrictions

After removal the user can configure sudo and/or other privilege escalation tools etc as per usual.

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