Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

Password prompt for /etc/hosts setup is confusing

Open
#101 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
1/5
Estimated time
Under an hour
Newbie friendliness
55/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
bash
Domain
cli

Research direction

Start at obolup.sh:1038-1043 and inspect the password-prompt path for updating /etc/hosts. Clarify that the prompt requests the user's system (sudo) password and explain that it is needed to modify the protected file; verify the wording does not affect the existing passwordless-sudo message.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement

Password prompt for /etc/hosts setup is confusing

Problem

During obolup.sh, users are prompted for a password to add obol.stack to /etc/hosts. The current wording is unclear:

[!] Administrator privileges required to update /etc/hosts

Please enter your password when prompted to add:
  127.0.0.1 obol.stack

Issues:

  1. Doesn't clearly state this is the system/sudo password (not a new password being created)
  2. Doesn't explain why we need it (to modify the protected /etc/hosts file)
  3. Users may be confused about what password to enter

Current Code

obolup.sh:1038-1043:

log_warn "Administrator privileges required to update /etc/hosts"
echo ""
echo "Please enter your password when prompted to add:"
echo "  $hosts_entry"
echo ""

Proposed Fix

Improve the wording to be more explicit:

log_warn "Administrator privileges required to update /etc/hosts"
echo ""
echo "You will be prompted for your system password (sudo) to add:"
echo "  $hosts_entry"
echo ""
echo "This is required to modify the protected /etc/hosts file."
echo ""

Or even simpler:

echo ""
echo "Administrator privileges required to add obol.stack to /etc/hosts"
echo ""
echo "You will be prompted for your system (sudo) password to add:"
echo "  $hosts_entry"
echo ""

Additional Context

This only affects users without passwordless sudo configured. Users with NOPASSWD sudo see:

[→] Updating /etc/hosts with existing privileges...

The confusion is specific to the password prompt scenario.

Dominant language
Go
Stars
11
Forks
1
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from ObolNetwork/obol-stack

All issues in ObolNetwork/obol-stack

Similar issues

More Go issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.