Member Avatar for tun712

I've just installed RHEL 7.6. I've installed Base environment: Server with GUI with all addons for selectred environment

During Installation I created Root Password & created user form User Creation with, Make this user administrator option

Now, post install & after successful login to RHEL environment, I'm unable to install any software or access KUser to edit user permission or change user group

While installing anything it gives error something went wrong, Error msg when trying to use KUser , Error opening /etc/shadow for reading

  1. Should I install again with Root only?
  2. How to give root permissions to user created during Installation?

Ref:- Installation of “Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.0” with Screenshots

Need books or tutorials to working in RHEL7 GUI

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by rproffitt

Dani AI

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Quick summary for (and a note to ): reinstalling usually isn’t required. The installer option that makes the first GUI user an administrator simply places that account in the wheel group so it can use sudo — verify that first, and check a few system permissions/policy items before thinking about a reinstall. RHEL installation docs (User Creation). (docs.redhat.com)

Practical checks and fixes (run these as root from a text console if the GUI won’t elevate — Ctrl+Alt+F3 to switch to a tty):

# login as root on a tty, then:
id youruser
ls -l /etc/shadow
stat -c '%U %G %a %n' /etc/shadow

# add the user to wheel if missing:
usermod -aG wheel youruser

# verify sudo config:
visudo -c
grep -E '^%wheel' /etc/sudoers

# fix owner/permissions if they are wrong (as root):
chown root:root /etc/shadow
chmod 600 /etc/shadow

# run the KDE user manager with elevation if needed:
kdesu kuser   # some DEs need kdesu/kdesudo to prompt for root

Adding an account to wheel with usermod -aG wheel is the normal way to give that account sudo rights on RHEL; the installer’s “make administrator” uses the same idea. If the KDE tool complains it cannot read shadow, that usually means it wasn’t run with root privileges (KDE tools normally use kdesu/kdesudo or a polkit agent to prompt). (developers.redhat.com)

If package installation via the GUI says “something went wrong,” also confirm the system is registered/has enabled repos (Server with GUI triggers Initial Setup which can register and attach a subscription). Check subscription-manager status and yum repolist enabled and register if needed; without active repos GUI installs will fail even with proper sudo. Also inspect systemctl status polkit and journalctl -xe (look for polkit/packagekit errors) and check /var/log/secure or /var/log/messages for auth failures. [RHEL install/initial-setup notes]. (docs.redhat.com)

If after these steps things still fail (lots of system files with wrong owners/perms, or SELinux contexts broken), a reinstall might be faster — but try the targeted fixes above first. For secure handling of /etc/shadow see the RHEL/OpenSCAP guidance on locking shadow file permissions before production changes. (mpreisle.fedorapeople.org)

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Member Avatar for rproffitt

"Red Hat uses strict trademark rules to restrict free re-distribution of its officially supported versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux"

So this is a Linux you pay for? Sorry, I'd go get a really free Linux.

Member Avatar for rproffitt

What I've done on other distros is yes to your question 1. After I have a working install I add users later.

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