Update: non-root accounts & "halt"/"reboot" options

[<andrew macintyre aba gov au> (Andrew MacIntyre)]

Firstly, thanks to Tom Gilbert, Owen Taylor, and Telsa for responding.

One clarification to add - the machine is in fact running gdm and not xdm as I
indicated (I hadn't at that point realised that Gnome had its own replacement
for xdm).

As per Tom's advice, I changed the privileges for the user accouts in linuxconf
 (the shutdown option was disabled).

Still no luck :-(

I've dug deeper, and come up with the following log fragment which appears to
point to the problem (maybe 2 problems?):

----8<----
Aug 18 19:27:30 xxx PAM_pwdb[2550]: (gdm) session opened for user andymac by
(uid=0)
Aug 18 19:27:45 xxx gnome-name-server[2615]: starting
Aug 18 19:27:45 xxx gnome-name-server[2615]: name server starting
Aug 18 19:28:20 xxx PAM_pwdb[2634]: 1 authentication failure; (uid=501) ->
andymac for shutdown service
Aug 18 19:28:20 xxx PAM_pwdb[2550]: (gdm) session closed for user andymac
Aug 18 19:28:20 xxx gnome-name-server[2615]: input condition is: 16, exiting
Aug 18 19:28:21 xxx gdm[539]: gdm_auth_secure_display: Could not unlink
/var/gdm/:0.xauth file: No such file or directory
----8<----

The obvious thing is that authentication is still failing for the shutdown,
despite linuxconf indicating that the account is granted shutdown rights.

The symptoms I'm seeing are:-
- select "logout of Gnome";
- select the "reboot" option;
- get presented with a dialog box for password;
- when the user's password is entered, a trailing carriage return has no
apparent effect, and either the "OK" or "Cancel" buttons causes a cycle back to
 the gdm login dialog.

Other things I've done, with no apparent effect:
- found the install wasn't using shadow passwds, so ran pwconv/grpconv
- found a Makefile in /var/db which appeared to be for recreating various
system dbs, so "made" it.

In answer to Owen's question - the stock RH6 Gnome RPMs are installed.  Apart
from changes noted above, I haven't knowingly customised anything, particularly
 the user accounts.

I should also point out that this system is my first exposure to Gnome and RH6
(previous linux experience predominantly Debian).

Apologies for not having trimmed the quoted message but this mail client
(BeyondMail) doesn't allow me to edit the quoted section :-(

Again, thanks in advance for any suggestions
Aug 18 19:28:20 froznys PAM_pwdb[2634]: 1 authentication failure; (uid=501) ->
andymac for shutdown 
-------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew MacIntyre                \ andrew.macintyre@aba.gov.au
Planning & Licensing Branch      \ Tel: +61 2 6256 2812
Australian Broadcasting Authority \ Fax: +61 2 6253 3277
---------- Original Text ----------

From: Tom Gilbert <gilbertt@tomgilbert.freeserve.co.uk>, on 17/08/99 22:00:

* Andrew MacIntyre (andrew.macintyre@aba.gov.au) [990817 11:12]:
> I've just installed RedHat 6 (workstation cfg), running xdm.  Its intended
use is such that I would like to have the users be able to shut it down or
reboot it as they would a W95 box (it is in fact a dual boot with W95), without
 needing to know the root password.
> 
> Gnome, as installed by the RH6 installer, seems ready to support such a
configuration, but it only works for the root account.  The Gnome user-guide
seems to imply that this should work for users as well.
> 
> I've searched both the RedHat and Gnome web sites, and the online help
without being able to find out for sure if a user should be able to exit Gnome
with either the "halt" or "reboot" options, and if so what I need to do to make
 it work.  I expected this to be an FAQ, but apparently not....
> 
> FWIW, the user accounts were created with useradd, using the standard
skeleton supplied by RH6.
> 
> Can anyone shed any light on this for me?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Andrew.
> <andrew.macintyre@aba.gov.au>

Run linuxconf as root, go to the user accounts tab, select user
accounts, and select a user to edit. Go to the priviledges tab and
you'll see an option called "May shutdown". If you enable this, the
user will be able to shutdown/reboot.

If you select Granted, the user is asked for *his* password (not
roots) when he runs the shutdown command. If you select Granted/Silent
I *think* he isn't asked for a password of any kind (untested, I use
Granted).

Tom.
-- 
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