change permission

alma · 10-28-2005, 12:59 AM

I want to connect to the internet as a normal user, not as root.
I just couldn't manage to do that, I must be doing something wrong.
Starting kppp as normal user an error message pops up:
... make sure root has the ownership and that the SUID bit is set.

How do I give a normal user the permission to use kppp?

Tinkster · 10-28-2005, 01:57 AM

What is the output of
ls -l `which kppp`
?

Cheers,
Tink

Dtsazza · 10-28-2005, 04:06 AM

There's a good description of the SUID bit right here on LinuxQuestions.org.

To summarise for your situation; you should execute (as root):

Code:

# chown root `which kppp`
# chmod +s `which kppp`

which will make sure that root owns the file, then set the SUID bit so that all users run it with root's priviledges. (By the way, the `which kppp` bit [note those are backticks and not regular single quotes] simply returns the full path to the kppp command, so that it can be edited like a regular file. If you know that it's located at, say, /usr/bin/kppp feel free to use that instead.)

alma · 10-28-2005, 10:13 PM

Here is the output of ls -l `which kppp`:

linux:~ # ls -l `which kppp`
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 802852 Oct 5 2004 /opt/kde3/bin/kppp

what I found interesting is that changing permissions by right clicking on kppp icon and selecting properties>permissions and changing them the "-rwxrwxrwx" doesn't change. Is that normal?

Quote:

Originally posted by Tinkster
What is the output of
ls -l `which kppp`
?

Cheers,
Tink

The

alma · 10-28-2005, 10:16 PM

Dtsazza,

The code solved the thing, I managed to connect with it as normal user, great! Sorry for bothering the forum with such basic things, I'm a downright newbie but linux is getting to be my new obsession, I can't resist asking for help whenever i have a problem.
Also thx for the link to the description of the SUID bit even though I can't understand a "bit" of it yet hahaha

Thanks again, you guys give folks like me a lot of confidence and strength to explore linux and call ourselves linux users..
almalaci

Quote:

Originally posted by Dtsazza
There's a good description of the SUID bit right here on LinuxQuestions.org.

To summarise for your situation; you should execute (as root):

Code:

# chown root `which kppp` # chmod +s `which kppp`

which will make sure that root owns the file, then set the SUID bit so that all users run it with root's priviledges. (By the way, the `which kppp` bit [note those are backticks and not regular single quotes] simply returns the full path to the kppp command, so that it can be edited like a regular file. If you know that it's located at, say, /usr/bin/kppp feel free to use that instead.)

Tinkster · 10-28-2005, 10:17 PM

If you weren't changing them as root that would be normal,
yes. And the chmod u+s `which kppp` should indeed solve
your problem ... :}

Cheers,
Tink