Hi

I''m suddenly getting an error message in KDE3 saying "Insufficient Rights" when I try to execute any program that requires root access. I've tried SU to root and then run a program, but the error keeps popping up.
When I go > su root redhat-config-services it actually prompts for the root password but then fails with an error saying "unable to execute binary file..."

I have not reinstalled or done anything out of the ordinary.
Any ideas?

try the commands seperately.

1. su
<enter root password>
2. redhat-config-services

edit:
also check the permissions and see if those processes are really infact links to console helper. i found that for me, if i set the permissions of just one of those links to console-helper then everything else that linked to console helper would fail to even bring up a root password prompt if i tried to run them. that was in the gui, i'm not sure what would the response would be in the shell terminal.

I have already tried that, but it doesn't make a difference.
Even if I log into X as root and then try to execute the programs it won't work..insufficient rights

actually, i edited my post. but what distro are you running? sorry my edit was assuming red hat.

redhat 9 running on an intel pentium 2 333mhz

try:

whereis consolehelper

cd to that directory. ie. if the output is /usr/bin/consolehelper, cd to /usr/bin

and then:

ls -l consolehelper

look at the permissions. see if it's at least rwx-rwx-r-x

other than that, if you're still getting permission denied or unable to execute binary, then i'm at a loss. sorry about that.

thanx for you help, i'll give it a try...

i just thought of something. your topic title, is that part of your error message?

do a:

ls -l /usr/sbin/userhelper

on my system the permissions are: rws - --x - --x

if it isn't like that, then try to open up your superuser filemanager. usually it's in kmenu > systems. navigate to /usr/sbin/userhelper and right click on the file and click the permissions tab. set the permissions for owner to read write, group to exec (could be enter) and other to exec (could be enter). then tick the box called Set UID which should be on the same line to the right of the owner's permissions.

i'll give it a try....I just don't understand how something like this can just happen.The one moment it works fine, the next nothing works...

Just wanted to say thanks... This solution helped me fix a problem I caused on my Fedora Core 3 machine when I was hacking tired. I stupidly issued this command:
Which, even after I fixed the permissions by comparing to another system, I still would get "Insufficient rights." when trying to run an application requiring root permissions via a menu entry.