root priveleges for the desktop and GUI apps in Fedora

[Tom 'Needs A Hat' Mitchell]

On Mon, Mar 15, 2004 at 06:32:43PM -0500, Tom wrote:

> When I run an app that requires root it prompts me for the root 
> password.  After I enter it a 'key' icon appears on the right side of 
> the panel.  This appears to indicate that I have root priveleges for my 
> GUI session.  This is a great idea which could save me from entering my 
> root password repeatedly.
> 
> But it doesn't seem to work completely.  The key dissapears after a 
> while, and I still encounter some cases where it doesn't recognize that 
> I have root privileges.
> 
> Is there documentation for this feature somewhere?  Is this a RH feature?

It is supposed to time out.
It is working correctly.

However you can tune it.  But be cautious....
be very cautious...

Follow the chain of things here.

  $ file /usr/bin/up2date
  /usr/bin/up2date: symbolic link to `consolehelper'
  $ file /usr/sbin/up2date

So the hook is `consolehelper`.  There is a great man page for
"consolehelper".  Next according to the man page needs pam services.
Looke here...

  /etc/pam.d/...
 and
  /etc/security/....

Check the list of things that "man -k pam" tosses your way.
For sure you need to check the man page on pam_timestamp.....
Look to see how it is used...

When you understand all this and also what you want, get out the note
book and have at it.  You may need the notebook after up2date or yum
update a file that the package manager did not expect you to touch.
There are +60 utilities in addition to up2date that use this set 
of tricks.

Better to use 'sudo' or 'su -' or just enter the magic word.



-- 
	T o m  M i t c h e l l 
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