I’ve seen people say that a few times here but any time I use gparted I get the Gnome ‘enter password’ dialog which seems to work fine.

Gparted prompts you to enter your password so it can elevate itself to root.

That comment meant anything that needs root will prompt for it WITHOUT you running as root. Running GUI apps as root directly won’t work well (1, it isn’t a good idea. 2, your user likely owns the X session)

Polkit (Policy Kit) is an authorization framework used in modern Linux distributions to manage access rights and privileges on the system. It allows unprivileged processes to communicate with privileged processes in a controlled and secure manner.
pkexec a command used to execute commands with elevated privileges, leverages both PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) and Polkit to authenticate the user and authorize the requested action. PAM is a framework used in Linux systems to handle user authentication and authorization.
Check out Polkit & PAM

While the other user explained what polkit is from a low level, I think it’s more practical to give you a high level explanation. Polkit is responsible for the dialog box that pops up when you try to open an app like GParted that requires root permissions (it edits partitions, a rootful task). What the user you replied to is saying is that you never want to run an app as root unless it prompts you for it (like with polkit prompts), or you know in great detail what you are doing. Running random things as root can break your system and the app you’re running. Most apps you will be using are not intended to be run as root under any circumstance, and at the very least will likely experience issues because of it (UI issues, data issues because the root home directory is not your home directory, configuration/setting changes, improper scaling, etc). Unless you know for a fact that something has to be run as root (like updating packages with your package manager) or you are specifically prompted when trying to do something, you absolutely do not want to be running things as root.

Just to further explain, even if an app isn’t started as root, it can request that permission as needed. For instance, Nautilus allows you to navigate through the root directory, and will prompt you for a password through polkit if you are trying to access something your user does not have permission to read (of course assuming your user has sudo privileges, but that’s beside the point). Unlike Windows, there is no practical use for a “run as root” option, because apps have the ability to request root access when it is necessary, and only when it is necessary. In addition to that, polkit limits the root access that an app is given to the specific actions for which it is requested (so an app can’t use root privileges to run unauthorized commands). The exception to that is when you start dealing with the terminal, but that falls into the category of “you better know what you’re doing and why”.

The short answer as to why this isn’t a thing in Linux is that the authentication and permission system functions nothing like Windows. In Linux, a “run as root” button is not a solution, it is a problem. The only reason that run as administrator exists in Windows is because sometimes the solution to a problem in Windows is to run an app as admin. That is not the case for Linux, and never will be.

There are many ideological differences between Windows and Linux. You’ll find many discussions here about how it is often not a good idea to try to do something the “Windows way” on Linux, because those ideologies and the software principles are incompatible. Part of learning how wonderful Linux is involves unlearning all of the horrible habits and ideological differences that Microsoft forces onto Windows users. This is one of those things that has to be unlearned, because full root privilege is not something that a regular app should ever ask for or even want in Linux. Root privilege is provided on a case-by-case basis from polkit with GUI apps; only when needed.

Can confirm the caution here. Bricked a system this way a while back.

That’s a permissions problem not a run as root problem.

See? This is why I’ve been asking this question several times. You caused a lot of headache on yourself and now you think running things as sudo is the solution when it’s what put you in a pickle to begin with.

Let’s deconstruct what you said:

The first thing I tried to do was delete a file off of a network share.

If you couldn’t do that it’s because you were connecting to the share using your user, but for some reason on whatever program you used might have tried the admin busier when you ran the program as root. For the network share it doesn’t matter what user is on your local machine, so this is an issue on how you’re accessing the share on your user, not with needing to run the program as root

Also, editing the name of a file copied from a network share.

Of course, if you ran the above with sudo any file copied over will be owned by root, so now your regular user can’t edit them

Also, editing text files

I imagine you mean files copied over with the above problem, so same thing applies.

also, formatting a thumb drive.

Formatting thumb drives can absolutely be done without running the while program on root, why do you think you need this? How are you trying to do that?

It has been a frequent headache.

I can imagine, I’ve seen people run things like sudo npm install and now they have issues because their node folder is owned by root, it’s very similar to what you’re experiencing, a small issue at the beginning triggered an avalanche of issues because you ran one program with sudo. Do you see why everyone is very cautiously asking why do you think you need this?

See how this was an XY problem? You’re asking how to add a “run as administrator” but what you actually want is to access a network share with your user. I don’t mean any of this in a bad tone, but there’s a reason people keep asking you why, it’s because what you’re asking is almost never a good idea and leads to problems such as this, imagine if you had been able to create that menu item? You would start using it and getting more and more files owned as root that would cause you to need this more and more until you end up just running everything on root.

Just saw your edit. One thing you should be doing is taking ownership of directories you plan to be working in. So for an external drive for example, you’d want to make sure your user(s) have r/w/x permission recursively (granting permission for all files and folders underneath using the same command) on the root folder of the drive then you can move stuff on and off freely.

I agree it could be more straightforward, but ideally you’d only have to do it one time when you first use the drive with that machine

The permissions problem was likely created by running something as root. You have a chicken and the egg problem my friend.

Sysadmin GUI tools are designed to be secure by isolating GUI from privileged process. That is not true for a random GUI app.

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Probably? They won’t run with sudo normally (in xorg at least). And only those explicitly allowed to be run with pkexec by maintainers will do. Of course it is possible to evade this restriction, but you definitely should not.

Nope. Running GUI as root in the same X server as unprivileged apps is insecure because each of them can take control over privileged window. IDK if this issue has been addressed in Wayland, but anyway there are no wayland-only distros nowadays.

Now i question why the whole GUI needs to run as root (even in working default config) instead of just the tool running the command with root.

I have no idea what you are talking about. The answer to your question is: this is impossible and this is done for purpose. Don’t try to work in linux like in windows.

Both su and sudo originally meant “superuser” because that was their only use. They have retroactively been changed to “switch user” because this functionality was added later.

I know, but explaining all that for just a comment on why I found funny the “run as sudo” seemed too much.

Which program/files and from which GUI? Each GUI will have it’s own way of doing that, and on 99% of cases it’s not necessary. He consistently refuses to answer simple questions about what he’s ultimately trying to accomplish. I have a generic way of doing that, login with the root user. Do you think that’s a bad idea? Then list all of the reasons why using root as your main user is a bad idea and probably every single one will apply to what he wants as well. There’s a reason why programs that need root access ask for it and don’t expect you to run them with sudo, the “run as administrator” is a windows concept from an OS that doesn’t have a proper way to elevate privileges so programs can’t implement that API and you need to elevate the entire program.

Yes there is, you’re asking how to add a menu entry to run things with sudo, and refuse to answer why you want to do it, what’s your use case? What graphical application do you need to run with sudo and why?

I’m almost sure I know why, and your refusal to answer this even though it’s been asked multiple times seems fishy. Like it was explained multiple times there’s a 99% chance that you don’t need it, and there is a package for the remaining 1% or you could do it manually like others have suggested. But until we know your use case we can’t help you, so while you keep refusing to explain what is it that you’re actually trying to accomplish and why do you feel you need it it will be impossible for anyone to help you.

I’ve gone swimming in specifically man eating shark infested waters for years and nothing bad has happened. So surely nothing bad will ever happen, and my actions have no risk tied to them. Think about why so many people have discouraged the actions you propose, safety rules are written in blood after all. You can, in fact do whatever you want, just keep it in mind when you are doing something risky.

You are absolutely not. It really bad practice. I can not state that enough.

Practice least privilege

I’m not trying to offend you. I just want to help.

It is rare that you would want to run an entire GUI program as root, and if it is needed, the program should prompt you for it. Do you have a specific use case where you need to do that regularly?

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That’s not how that should work. You also shouldn’t need that in Windows either.

Programs that need Admin rights will ask for it. There are a fee limited cases but most of the time it creates more problems than it solves.

From your comments I’ve read it sounds like there is more to this story. Can you share what you are trying to do? On gnome gnome disks can run fine under the user. It will elevate when it needs to and it is designed with least privilege.

For file shares root is pretty much meaningless in most contexts. If you don’t have access you don’t have access as authentication is handled server side. If you setup a automatic mount check your mount options as you can set it to be owned by the local user. Also if you mounted the share in a graphical file utility such as nautilus it will be mounted for the local user so you will not need root.

Root should be used very sparingly. It is not the same as Admin on Windows. It is almost equivalent to the SYSTEM user on Windows.

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You have no idea what that would do in Linux. First read some documentation, then decide if you really need it. I guess you can see by the number of people trying to put you on the right path that what you want is not a good idea.