gksudo

Run a command as a specific user

$ gksudo -u [userid] [command]

$ gksudo -u [userid] -k [command]

$ gksudo -u [userid] -w [command]

$ gksudo -u [userid] -S [command]

$ gksudo -u [userid] -d [command]

gksudo [options] command

gksudo is a graphical frontend for `sudo` that prompts for a password using a GTK dialog. It is essentially `gksu` configured to use sudo-mode by default, authenticating with the current user's password and sudo privileges.
This allows running graphical applications with elevated privileges while using sudo's configuration for permission control.

DEPRECATED: gksudo is no longer maintained and has security issues. Use pkexec from PolicyKit for graphical privilege escalation instead.

-u, --user USER

Run command as specified user (default: root)

Preserve current environment variables

Force use of su for authentication

Force use of sudo for authentication (default)

Output debug information

Custom message in password dialog

Description for the command being run

Deprecated and unmaintained. Running graphical applications as root can cause permission problems with user config files and X authority. Modern systems discourage running GUI applications as root.

gksudo was created alongside gksu for Ubuntu and other distributions that preferred sudo over su for privilege escalation. Both were deprecated around 2012 in favor of PolicyKit's pkexec mechanism.

pkexec(1), sudo(8), gksu(1)