Introduction
Please see the article “Build a Linux-based Infrastructure Solution Demonstration Series” (https://blogs.czapski.id.au/2016/10/build-a-linux-based-infrastructure-solution-demonstration-series) for rationale, introduction and links to articles in this series.
In this article I am configuring the OS so that the demo user:
- Is automatically logged in at boot and whenever they log out
- Can sudo without a password
- Can freely access the VirtualBox shared folder
Pre-Requisites
This article assumes that the work is done in the Virtual Box Machine Image created in accordance with the instructions in the blog article to be found at https://blogs.czapski.id.au/2016/10/configure-virtual-box-virtual-machine-and-install-centos-6-8-base-image.
The instructions should work in other RedHat 6-like OSes and OS versions.
Enable autologin for demo user
Enable autologin for the demo user so that on boot demo user is automatically logged in
su - # welcome1 cp /etc/gdm/custom.conf /etc/gdm/custom.conf_orig sed -i 's/\[daemon\]/\[daemon\]\ AutomaticLoginEnable=true\ AutomaticLogin=demo\ /' /etc/gdm/custom.conf reboot
Reboot to verify that demo user is logged in automatically
Add demo user to sudoers
Add demo to sudo’ers with all rights and no need to enter password
su - # welcome1
rm -f /dev/shm/sudoers
cp -f /etc/sudoers /dev/shm/sudoers
insertAfter=$(( $(grep -n "## Allow root to run any commands anywhere" /dev/shm/sudoers \
| cut -d ":" -f1-1) + 2)); echo ${insertAfter}
ed /dev/shm/sudoers <<-END
${insertAfter}i
demo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
.
w
q
END
grep -B2 -A2 demo /dev/shm/sudoers
cp -f /dev/shm/sudoers /etc/sudoers # needs manual acknowledgement with "yes"
exit
sudo ls -al /root
Allow user to freely use Virtual Box shared folder
Include demo account in vboxsf group so that the user can freely use vbox shared folder. This assumes that the sahred folder was created with the name “distros”. If it was created with a different name change the commands accordingly.
ls -al /media/sf_distros # verify that you don’t have access to the shared folder sudo usermod -G vboxsf demo
Log out and log back in for this to take effect
ls -al /media/sf_distros # verify that you now have access to the shared folder
