Starting an application as root

[Todd Zullinger]

Norm wrote:
> When running in Gnome some applications when the start require the
> root pasword to continue, others such as the gui interface for nmap
> will open with limited options available.  It is simple enough to
> switch to a command line process to run it but I am looking for a
> way to switch to root or sudo during the process of starting the
> application.  Is there a simple modification to the open command in
> the GUI interface to call for the entry of a password to open the
> application as root

The apps that request a password use consolehelper for this.  If you
wanted to make nmap run as root, you could add a file in
/etc/security/console.apps/ and create a symlink to consolehelper in
/usr/bin.

See the consolehelper man page and use the existing apps as a
guide to configuring nmap.

There was a thread on this last week and alternatives such as gksu and
gksudo were discussed.  Those tools can be useful in some situations,
but they aren't included in Fedora as running gui apps as root opens
up some cans of security worms.

The approach that's best for you depends on how much of a security
freak you are and on how many apps you want to run as root.

For nmap, I personally just use sudo nmap in a terminal when I need to
do some auditing/scanning.

-- 
Todd        OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
======================================================================
Nothing says, "Obey me!" like a bloody head on a fence post.
    -- Stewie Griffin

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