Problems with switching to root user on Nao (Robot)

Question

I am right now trying to connect to Nao robot to install an mqtt-client/listener. My goal is to install paho-mqtt using pip (following this tutorial using the command pip install paho-mqtt. Thus, I need admin rights (root user), however, I cannot switch the user accounts using su as I am receiving the error "Authentication failure" with error code 1.

here is what I tried:

1. If I call pip install paho-mqtt from the nao user, I only can retreive a read-only file and the installation fails.

2. If I call sudo pip install paho-mqtt from the nao user, I get the error message: "Sorry, user nao is not allowed to execute '/usr/bin/pip install paho-mqtt' as root on nao."

3. I tried pip install paho-mqtt --user , which theoretically worked but installed it to a /.local/ directory and it does not activate and actively listens to what is sent. (below are some screenshot on the outcomes of these tries)

4. I tried pip install paho-mqtt --root /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages but alo here I made problems with the user rights, that as user nao, the directory is read-only and not writable.

5. I tried it when the robot was connected via an ethernet cable and without.

6. I tried connecting through raw (while connected with ethernet) and with telnet, but these connections were blocked.

Other things:

• robot and laptop are in the same network
• The root password is still the standard password
• I tried with the robot not connected to the internet and only through the ethernet
• I performed a factory reset
• I tried loading the files of the installation via file transfer to the robot from another nao robot.
• I tried to give the nao user admin rights - but also did not work without the root user

My current conclusion is, what also the documentation states, that the root user has been blocked from accessing through ssh connection. Now I am trying to find a different way of connecting to the root user in the robot and installing the paho-mqtt package. Anyone else had the problem or any ideas how to connect to the robot without using ssh??

I know that people managed to circumvent this and I would really appreciate the help and telling me how.

> nao [0] ~ $ su root
Password:
su: Authentication failure
> nao [err 1] ~ $ pip install paho-mqtt
Collecting paho-mqtt
  Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/f8/dd/4b75dcba025f8647bc9862ac17299e0d7d12d3beadbf026d8c8d74215c12/paho-mqtt-1.6.1.tar.gz
Installing collected packages: paho-mqtt
  Running setup.py install for paho-mqtt ... error
    Complete output from command /usr/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-install-VYAcPd/paho-mqtt/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /tmp/pip-record-5pl4_S/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile:
    running install
    running build
    running build_py
    creating build
    creating build/lib
    creating build/lib/paho
    copying src/paho/__init__.py -> build/lib/paho
    creating build/lib/paho/mqtt
    copying src/paho/mqtt/subscribeoptions.py -> build/lib/paho/mqtt
    copying src/paho/mqtt/subscribe.py -> build/lib/paho/mqtt
    copying src/paho/mqtt/reasoncodes.py -> build/lib/paho/mqtt
    copying src/paho/mqtt/publish.py -> build/lib/paho/mqtt
    copying src/paho/mqtt/properties.py -> build/lib/paho/mqtt
    copying src/paho/mqtt/packettypes.py -> build/lib/paho/mqtt
    copying src/paho/mqtt/matcher.py -> build/lib/paho/mqtt
    copying src/paho/mqtt/client.py -> build/lib/paho/mqtt
    copying src/paho/mqtt/__init__.py -> build/lib/paho/mqtt
    running egg_info
    writing requirements to src/paho_mqtt.egg-info/requires.txt
    writing src/paho_mqtt.egg-info/PKG-INFO
    writing top-level names to src/paho_mqtt.egg-info/top_level.txt
    writing dependency_links to src/paho_mqtt.egg-info/dependency_links.txt
    reading manifest file 'src/paho_mqtt.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
    reading manifest template 'MANIFEST.in'
    warning: no files found matching 'epl-v10'
    writing manifest file 'src/paho_mqtt.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
    running install_lib
    creating /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/paho
    error: could not create '/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/paho': Read-only file system

    ----------------------------------------
Command "/usr/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-install-VYAcPd/paho-mqtt/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /tmp/pip-record-5pl4_S/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile" failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-install-VYAcPd/paho-mqtt/
> nao [err 1] ~ $ pip list
Package         Version
--------------- -----------
asn1crypto      0.24.0
backports-abc   0.4
catkin-pkg      0.2.10
certifi         2018.11.29
cffi            1.11.5
chardet         3.0.4
cryptography    2.3
enum34          1.1.6
fail2ban        0.10.3.fix1
idna            2.7
ipaddress       1.0.22
ndg-httpsclient 0.5.1
numpy           1.14.5
pil-compat      1.0.0
Pillow          3.1.1
pip             18.0
ply             3.11
pyasn1          0.4.4
pycparser       2.18
pycryptodome    3.4.11
pygobject       3.28.3
pyinotify       0.9.6
pyOpenSSL       18.0.0
pyserial        3.4
PySocks         1.6.8
python-dateutil 2.7.3
PyYAML          3.13
requests        2.19.1
setuptools      40.0.0
simplejson      3.16.0
singledispatch  3.4.0.3
six             1.11.0
systemd-python  234
TornadIO2       0.0.3
tornado         4.5.3
urllib3         1.23
vobject         0.9.6.1
> nao [0] ~ $ sudo pip install paho-mqtt
Password:
Sorry, user nao is not allowed to execute '/usr/bin/pip install paho-mqtt' as root on nao.
> nao [err 1] ~ $ sudo pip install paho-mqtt --root /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages
Password:
Sorry, user nao is not allowed to execute '/usr/bin/pip install paho-mqtt --root /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages' as root on nao.

Answer 1

On the most recent versions of the NAOqi OS, the root access is not allowed. Please try with --user or within a venv.