Authenticate for Time and Date Settings

[pharrisire]

While trying to make sure KNOS had the right time to go by for Tor/Onion to work,
I went System>Administration>Time and Date to confirm the time setting - but it is
greyed out and the 'click to make changes' button brings up:

Authenticate
You need to authenticate to modify
the system configuration

Pushing the 'Authenticate' button has no effect, so no
change/correction can be made.
I have it set correctly in the upper right-hand corner, but as Tor/Onion is
sporadic at best, I was trying to make sure as you had mentioned before
that time discrepancy was a possible cause.

file:///media/disk/Screenshot_Authenticate.png

[pharrisire]

didn't go thru last time.

Attachments:

[Kevin McAleavey]

You were actually VERY close there. "Authenticate" works strangely on KNOS for security purposes. We only "open the door" for 50 milliseconds for "authentication" and that's often faster than human reaction time (and FOR a purpose!) ... I like to describe the concept of dealing with it at times as "using the force" like in Star Wars.

You *do* get authenticated, but only after KNOS checks to ensure that there's really a human at the keyboard. Once authentication is done, that's all locked. But authentication FOR the local keyboard and mouse ONLY (after ensuring that there are no hooks) *does* occur! The strange behavior is deliberate. We do it like this JUST in case somehow a remote connection has been somehow successfully made to KNOS and that is locked out.

When you get the "authenticate" screen, press the button where the lock is. If it "hangs" then have faith that you DID get authenticated on that screen. If you're quick enough, the authentication window will go away by itself. If you're NOT fast enough, then have faith that you're OK and just hit the regular window close button in the upper right corner. You'll see the lock (in your case, in some themes it looks like a phone for some odd reason) icon flash up on the very top right near the clock that indicates success.

Be sure to click it to close it once you're done so that it vanishes again. No one else should be able to ever sneak through, but no point in taking chances by leaving the connection available should you walk away from the machine and someone else can get at the mouse and keyboard.

Because this is under the "Administration" header, there's a long timeout before you're allowed in. This is also for security purposes. Because a system timestamp is considered a "security event" when you try to set the time under "administration" KNOS has to start an entirely separate session for admin with permissions only to set the time and date. This is a full bootup into a hidden session specifically for that purpose and that purpose alone. Once it's up, your keyboard and mouse are switched into that session and then you can do all that diddling. While in that session, your regular KNOS session cannot see it, and it cannot see KNOS. Once the system has been set, then you are returned to your regular KNOS session and it picks up the time setting. We can't allow the two sessions to "see" one another.

Normally, the way to set time zone and all that is to click once on the calendar/clock in the upper right corner of your desktop. A dropdown window appears with a line that says "Location." If you hover on the right side of that, you'll see an "Edit" button. If you click that, this brings up a Window in your KNOS session that will let you set your location, whether or not you want weather info up there and some additional options. If you save your preferences, then this will be remembered in future bootups. However, because we do NOT save "system settings" then you need to go back there and you'll see your location saved with your prefs. If you hover over to the right next to your local city, you'll have a button that will appear once the mouse is over it that will let you kick the local time display each and every boot. That button asks the system to restore your time. Once again, this is for security to keep you and the system completely separated but hitting that button will notify the system to check the time displayed and correct it.

And as to that "authentication" prompt, KNOS verifies that YOU were the one who called it, checks what the mouse and keyboard did immediately before it comes up and then hits that "Authenticate" button internally for you. If you can press it and the screen goes away then, all good. But if you're not fast enough, it's already been pressed and then it gets IMMEDIATELY locked out to prevent "someone else" from hitting it. So if it doesn't react, just close that window. You've ALREADY been authenticated by KNOS.

Yep ... we're paranoid here. That's how we keep the bad guys OUT.