ubuntu - how can I avoid typing a password on every admin action?

I just set-up ubuntu 9.10 on my computer, and I'm trying to figure out how to avoid typing a password on every action that requires sudo privileges. I just want to type a password once on login and have all rights throughout my session. Also, I'd rather not login as root, but using my own username and settings. Thanks.

Solution 1:

sudo visudo and add the following line:

MYUSERNAME ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

replacing MYUSERNAME with your username :)

This allows your user account to sudo any command without requiring a password. Note that there are inherent security risks with this though - for example if someone can persuade you to run a script, that script could sudo and do things as root without you noticing. It is convenient though.

Solution 2:

You can set timestamp_timeout in the sudoers file (sudo visudo to edit) to a longer value or a negative value (which will make it not expire).

From man sudoers:

timestamp_timeout
                       Number of minutes that can elapse before sudo will ask
                       for a passwd again.  The default is 15.  Set this to 0
                       to always prompt for a password.  If set to a value
                       less than 0 the user's timestamp will never expire.
                       This can be used to allow users to create or delete
                       their own timestamps via sudo -v and sudo -k
                       respectively.