New to Slack, been spoiled by Mandy, need help

Jadasin · 04-17-2003, 09:26 PM

Hi all, as the title sugest's I'm completely new to Slackware, just downloaded and installed Slackware 9 today, lots of fun.

I'm not a complete newbie, as I had been using Mandrake since ver. 7.1 all the way up to 9. Now I find that with havind had used a distro that pretty much did everything for you, I'm now a little behind on all the stuff I should know.

One little problem I'm running into now is a pain and I'm sure it's easy to fix but still can't seem to get my head around it. I use DSL and I set up through PPPoE, everything works great when im route user but after I set up a user for myself (so I don't blow my new nice little install) I can't connect at all. I go to command line and type "adsl-start" or "adsl-status" and I get a command not found error.

I thought this may be a permission issue but I'm not sure, I've looked around as best I can but seriously, this sucks.... Can anyone help with this. Let me know

Thanks a ton in advance.

Anna.

Excalibur · 04-17-2003, 10:53 PM

It could be permissions or the path setting. The path is different for root than it is for a normal user. But it can be changed in the /etc/profile config. But it will also be more than that because I think only root is allowed to bring up any network configuration. Much like mounting a hard disk or something. You might want to look into configuring for on-demand use or 24x7. Then setting it up automatically when you boot from the /etc/rc.d/rc.local script. It would then be available to the normal user upon request.

My DSL service uses PPPoE but it is configured into the router box, so my server is just a simple LAN configuration with a static IP address. I tried to setup the rp-pppoe package but it wouldn't connect through the router. So I will not be of much help for the config, other than suggesting to add the adsl-start command in the rc.local script. If you need to reinit or check status from the console as a user you can use the "su" command. (su - root) Note the dash in the middle of the command. Then you could execute your commands and enter "exit" when completed. Perhaps it will help a little bit.

wr3ck3d · 04-17-2003, 11:46 PM

for instance with pppd (for dial up) as root i can type anywhere. But as a regular user i need the full path. Also, i had to suid it becuase pppd has to be run as root, so with suid a normal user can run as root without getting asked the pass. Im sure thats your problem. So just do a locate, or find to find where is you adsl commands, then
chmod u+s /where/is/adsl-start
then make a shortcut to it.

Jadasin · 04-18-2003, 01:48 PM

Thanks to both of you for answering, well I found my adsl-start command (usr/sbin "if anyone else is wondering") as a normal user I tried the adsl-start command, for the first time it actually saw the command (the file) but came back whith the message "you must be root to run this script" DOH! how frustrating is that. You know I'm really surprised that with all the thousands of people who use linux who must be also using dsl, this hasn't been easier. haha.

So anyways, I have to figure out how to make this script available to my user. I tried to lighten the permisions on the script itself but for some odd reason, I still can't get my user to access it, realizing that users/groups & persmissions is like linux 101 I now feel like a complete idiot. oh well.

It's not to much of a hassle to open whatever in su mode, like now I'm using mozilla in my user accout but only because I su in command line and opened it from there. The problem comes when downloading stuff or whatever, everything comes in the system as root, which sucks. Anyways, if anyone has any help on this, it's hugely appreciated, this is getting mucho frustrating.

Anna

Excalibur · 04-18-2003, 03:30 PM

Have you tried just adding it into the rc.local script so it is activated when you boot the system?

webtoe · 04-18-2003, 04:01 PM

hmmmm, you can just run it by temporarily becoming root by using the su command as has been stated. Just type it and press enter, enter the root password and you should be able to run the script fine. The reason that it won't be found as a normal user is because its in a "sbin" or super user binaries. In other words, they're not for the normal people. This path, along with the /sbin directory, is not in normal user's paths only in roots. There wouldn't be much point putting it into your path since none of the other binaries in there cannot be run by you. Instead just make a symbolic link if typing the path name is too much for you.

What does the output of

Code:

ls -l /usr/sbin/adsl-start

give?

You could try giving the 'others' section the right to execute the script but not to write or read it. This can be done by

Code:

su
enter root password
chmod o+x /usr/sbin/adsl-start
chmod o-rw /usr/sbin/adsl-start

Or you could put it in your start up script like Excalibur said. Just make sure that you have a firewall set up first.

HTH

Alex

Jadasin · 04-18-2003, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Excalibur
Have you tried just adding it into the rc.local script so it is activated when you boot the system?

Umm ok realizing that I probably really look stupid, but I don't really know how to enter it in so that it starts. I know how to vi to the script and save it and all that but other then that, no clue, so if you could help with that, that would be very very cool of you.

Thanks webtoe, I tried the chmod so that other users could start the script, for some reason it stills states that I need to be root to adsl-start. This is strange to me but I'm sure it has a very common sense reason. I just don't know it.

Anna.

Excalibur · 04-18-2003, 04:43 PM

Well, edit the /etc/rc.d/rc.local script with vi, or pico, or mcedit as desired. Just enter a line that states what you need to run. Like;

/usr/sbin/adsl-start

Save the file and it should execute when you reboot.

Jadasin · 04-18-2003, 04:53 PM

Cool, thankx Excal, I'm gonna go give it a shot now... crossing my fingers and hope it works...

Thanks again, you all rock

Anna

Jadasin · 04-18-2003, 05:40 PM

Well unfortunately, I don't think it worked, I'll post up what I wrote to the file, maybe I did something wrong, I don't know. This is what is in the file now.

#!/sbin/sh
#
# /etc/rc.d/rc.local: Local System initialization script
# /usr/sbin/adsl-start <-- this is what I put in--
# Put any local set up command in Here:
~
~
~
~
~

And that's it, rebooted, nothing turned on at all. Like I said, maybe i did something wrong... Thanks HUGE again, for all the help.

wr3ck3d · 04-18-2003, 05:50 PM

For the 2nd time. did you suid it like i mentioned???

#chmod u+s /usr/sbin/adsl-start

then whoever runs it WILL be root

Jadasin · 04-18-2003, 06:06 PM

Hi wr3ck3d, yup yup, done that, been there. This is why I'm so lost, I changed the permissions on the adsl-start script so that, at least with my train of thought, anyone could start it up but no luck at all.

After changing the permissions I still get the "you must be root to run this script" message. VERY annoying indeed.

Thanks for the 2nd try though

Anna.

wr3ck3d · 04-18-2003, 06:11 PM

lol, ok. what does this put out

ls -l /usr/sbin/adsl-start

put that up here

Jadasin · 04-18-2003, 06:18 PM

Hi wr3ck3d, I get this with the command you sent me

ls -l/usr/sbin/adsl-start
-rwsrwx--x 1 Root 5569 Mar 2 17:04 /usr/sbin/adsl-start

Thanks for helping, you rock :P

Anna.

wr3ck3d · 04-18-2003, 06:33 PM

ok that is suid, try this also

#chmod u+s /etc/ppp/pppoe.conf

since that is what adsl looks at, so maybe it cant read that but i am not sure. this is what i have in my adsl-start file

# Defaults
CONFIG=/etc/ppp/pppoe.conf
USER=""
ETH=""
ME=`basename $0`
# Must be root
if [ "`/usr/bin/id -u`" != 0 ] ; then
$ECHO "$ME: You must be root to run this script" >& 2
exit 1
fi

So not sure if that is saying you have to be root no matter what, or just in the pppoe.conf you need root permissions also. Give it a try and see