Can't "shutdown -a -r now" as a normal user, though shutdown.allow exists
 

My /etc/shutdown.allow file lists my username "james." When logged in as "james" using "shutdown -a now" gives me the "you must be root to do that" and the Usage info. I'm using Gentoo with kernel 2.6. How can I allow normal users to shutdown and reboot the computer?

I never thought there was something like shutdown.allow, that's nice to know :D

Usually on my workstation (where I am the only user) I use the setuid trick to allow user to halt/reboot ( chmod 4755 /sbin/halt and chmod 4755 /sbin/reboot ).
On a multiuser computer, my idea would be to use "sudo" to allow certain users root power when they call shutdown and/or halt and/or reboot. Refer to sudo documentation (man sudo, man /etc/sudoers) if you want info about this.

shutdown.allow is mentioned the shutdown man page. Certainly there is a way of making this feature work properly?

I just looked at man shutdown, and one way to read the part about /etc/shutdown.allow would be that it only applies to processing of CTL-ALT-DEL.

What happens when you do a CTL-ALT-DEL (After adding the "-a" in /etc/inittab)?

Ctrl-alt-del works as a normal user. EDIT: If it applies only to ctrl-alt-del, then why does shutdown have the -a option? From the man page: "-a Use /etc/shutdown.allow."

I agree that is a good questions why have -a option if you arent trying to do it from the console?
Just googled up this thread with the same question in mind :)