[PLUG] Allowing user shutdowns

[Sean Whitney]

Assuming that you are using Xwinders on the laptop, gdm can be
configured to allow any user sitting in front of the login screen to
execute a shutdown.  I'm not sure about xdm or kdm.


Sean

On Sun, 2002-09-22 at 13:03, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   I know that only root can issue the 'shutdown' command, but what is the
> accepted procedure when the installation is on a laptop and you don't want
> to give the user root priviledges? I can think of only two scenarios:
> 
>   1) Make a different root password for that box and hope that accidents are
> few and far between; or,
> 
>   2) Write a script, called perhaps 'done', that su's to root, uses expect
> to supply the root password, then issues the 'shutdown -h now' command.
> 
>   The second is cleaner and safer, but I've never done any expect
> programming and I don't know if it can be used to supply the root password
> in a situation as I've described.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Rich
> 
> 
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