New to Linux .. just installed RedHat 7.3 ..

Did a little bit of exploring and noticed that local users can successfully /usr/bin/reboot .. I am guessing this is normal.

However, when network users attempt reboot usr/bin/consolehelper is called and results in a Segmentation Fault.

Can anyone help me understand what is going on?

I'm concerned because I'd expect network users to not even be able to call reboot .. but also .. why the Seg fault?

Thanks.
S.

Consolehelper isn't sposed to be accessed directly (man consolehelper for more). You could try running strace on it:
strace -o </dir/logfile> (-u <user> IIRC) -f -ff -F -v <executable>

True unSpawn. I did read the man.

Strange thing is .. consolehelper is executed when a remote user tries to execute reboot.

I'd expect that remote users wouldn't be able to execute reboot at all (in fact, they can run but it doesn't work .. instead it executes consolehelper and gives a seg fault; local users can successfully run reboot). Not a great security model if you ask me .. but this is a vanilla installation. I didn't touch anything. Created a root pass and 3 users during install .. no other changes made.

I'll try the strace that you recommend and report back ..

Any additional guidance is appreciated.

Thanks!

Hmm. I remember vaguely unsetting the suid bit on console?/userhelper a long time ago, had to do with some exploit. Btw, reboot doesn't exist. It's a slink to consolehelper: see with "file $(which consolehelper)" or "stat $(which consolehelper)".