user rights

cj4331 · 02-18-2008, 03:38 PM

What kind of rights does a user need to be able to start and stop services on Linux?

alan_ri · 02-18-2008, 04:12 PM

Well root is the boss,and for user to have some permitions you have to give him (as root) that wrights for any specific action you want.

chrism01 · 02-18-2008, 06:13 PM

If it's just you personally, login as root as mentioned. (use the 'su -' cmd)
If you want others to be able to run only specified cmds and nothing else, look into the sudo utility.

cj4331 · 02-18-2008, 07:15 PM

One should always have a backup admin on a system. I want to let someone else admin the system for me such as restarting and making changes to the samba shares. I don't want to give the the root password. Surely I can set up a user who can admin the system w/o having to risk giving the root password to someone.

jschiwal · 02-18-2008, 07:27 PM

Create a regular account for the user and make the user a member of the "wheel" group. You can configure sudo to use the user's own password instead of root's. On some systems like Fedora Core, that is the way sudo is configured already.
If you only want temporary help, you can disable that account after he or she is finished.

cj4331 · 02-19-2008, 07:25 AM

So there is no way to set up a user that can do things like restart samba on a linux system unless I install sudo? I should have noted I'm using RedHat.

jschiwal · 02-20-2008, 10:43 PM

You could look into "policy kit". However, using sudo would be much easier. In Linux, you can't have suid scripts.
If your version of Red Hat doesn't use "sudo" then it is so old you should update immediately.