Sean O'Dubhghaill wrote:
On Wednesday 01 Dec 2004 8:02 pm, Ralph Katz wrote:

On 12/01/2004 02:10 PM, Frederico Rodrigues Abraham wrote:

   Isn't there an option on GDM to enable normal users to shutdown
and reboot the machine?
   It always requires the root password to do it...
   -- Fred

Yes. This is from my /etc/gdm/gdm.conf (using Sarge):


And you can also change this from the gdmsetup tool by turning off secure actions menu in the Security tab


# The Actions menu (formerly system menu) is shown in the greeter, this
is the # menu that contains reboot, shutdown, suspend, config and
chooser.  None of # these is available if this is off.  They can be
turned off individually # however
SystemMenu=true
# The Actions in the Actions menu require the root password
SecureSystemMenu=false

Regards, Ralph




I have often wondered why exactly it defaults to requiring a password. Requiring a user who has physical access to a computer root privileges to shut it down seems fundamentally flawed to me--they could easily shut it down by removing power. However this is potentially damaging, so it seems logical to allow them to initiate a proper shutdown. Is removing this limitation a security issue for remote users? Surely disabling 'secure actions' won't allow a remote user to shutdown via gdm.. right? Anyhow, just thought I'd throw this out there to see if anyone has a good explanation. It always seemed to be a completely unncessesary and potentially frustrating default. I find it especially strange since by default any user can shut down once logged into gnome via gdm, but they become stranded once back on the welcome screen.


Michael Spang


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