I'd like to allow non-root users on my Gentoo system to start gdm (or xdm or kdm, for that matter) from bash. What's the big security risk (how is gdm more dangerous than startx?) and how do I go about accomplishing this?

Why would you want to do that? They would already be logged in, so why run *DM at that point?

Steve

True, the user could just run "startx". But if the user wants to change his WM, he would have to modify ~/.xsession or possibly even XSESSION (the latter of which he wouldn't have access to) - running gdm would just be more convenient. Not to mention that some Gnome features, such as logging into a windowed session from an active login, only work if gdm is running in the background.

Plus it annoys me that I don't know how to let non-root users run gdm .

Check the 'sudo' command. It might do it.

Thanks for the helpful response!
Unfortunately, sudo isn't working so well. My sudoers file looks like this:

# sudoers file.
#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# See the sudoers man page for the details on how to write a sudoers file.
#

# Host alias specification

Host_Alias JACK = Jack, localhost

# User alias specification

User_Alias XUSERS = bkay, skay

# Cmnd alias specification

Cmnd_Alias STARTX = /usr/bin/gdm
Cmnd_Alias STOPX = /usr/bin/gdm-stop

# Defaults specification

# User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Uncomment to allow people in group wheel to run all commands
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Same thing without a password
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

# Samples
# %users ALL=/sbin/mount /cdrom,/sbin/umount /cdrom
# %users localhost=/sbin/shutdown -h now
XUSERS JACK = STARTX, STOPX

And my sudo command looks like this:

bkay@Jack bkay $ sudo STOPX
Password:
Sorry, user bkay is not allowed to execute 'STOPX' as root on Jack.
bkay@Jack bkay $

Help?