Hi, Ned. You wrote: > I've had a quick look at consolehelper, and I'm still not sure I fully > understand how it works, at least enough to be able to write a section on > it. I understand it uses pam authentication when running a program that > requires root privileges and requests the root password > (system-config-services being an example), but I don't fully understand how > a user would use it, although I see any application could potentially be > configured in /etc/pam.d/ If we want to say really everything about becoming root, we should also mention consolehelper as it is the most powerfull method - su doesn't need any config, sudo needs simple, but configurable sudoers, and consolehelper uses pam. I realize of course that ordinary user mustn't mess with pam :^) , but admin-beginner should know about that method, and our HOWTO could be a good introduction. Of course we shouldn't explain every pam module here, just the basic config. I'm doing most of my admin job in console with sudo, but I know that if my users migrate one day from XP to Linux, they will not want to use su/sudo to run programs with raised privileges. > How far such an article should be expanded, and whether we wish to cover > every conceivable method for launching something with root privileges is > probably not something for me to answer. That said, if you'd (or anyone) > like to expand on my initial remit and write an additional section, please > feel free :) I've mentioned consolehelper just because I think I can write such section. Of course it should be proofreaded because of my English. > On an additional note, whilst investigating consolehelper, I also noticed > the "Run Command..." option on the KDE Menu (...). Perhaps a gnome > user could advise if gnome has similar functionality? There is a gnomesu (http://xsu.sourceforge.net/) project. Regards, Rafal