consolehelper

CONSOLEHELPER(8)                                              CONSOLEHELPER(8)



NAME
       consolehelper - A wrapper that helps console users run system programs

SYNOPSIS
       progname [ options ]

DESCRIPTION
       consolehelper  is  a  tool  that makes it easy for console users to run
       system programs, doing authentication via PAM (which can be set  up  to
       trust all console users or to ask for a password at the system adminis-
       trator's discretion).  When possible, the authentication is done graph-
       ically;  otherwise,  it is done within the text console from which con-
       solehelper was started.

       It is intended to be completely transparent.  This means that the  user
       will  never  run the consolehelper program directly.  Instead, programs
       like /sbin/shutdown are paired with a link  from  /usr/bin/shutdown  to
       /usr/bin/consolehelper.   Then when non-root users (specifically, users
       without /sbin in their path, or /sbin after /usr/bin) call  the  "shut-
       down" program, consolehelper will be invoked to authenticate the action
       and then invoke /sbin/shutdown.  (consolehelper  itself  has  no  priv-
       iledges; it calls the userhelper(8) program do the real work.)

       consolehelper  requires that a PAM configuration for every managed pro-
       gram exist.  So to make /sbin/foo or /usr/sbin/foo managed, you need to
       create  a  link  from /usr/bin/foo to /usr/bin/consolehelper and create
       the file /etc/pam.d/foo, normally using the pam_console(8) PAM  module.

OPTIONS
       This program has no command line options of its own; it passes all com-
       mand line options on to the program it is calling.

SEE ALSO
       userhelper(8)

BUGS
       No known bugs.  Report any you find at http://developer.redhat.com/  at
       the BugTrack link.

AUTHOR
       Michael K. Johnson <johnsonm@redhat.com>



Red Hat Software                 18 March 1999                CONSOLEHELPER(8)