If I'm not logged in as root and try to run any of the admin tools, a UI pops up asking me to put in the root pw.

Is there a way to set any executable that only has root execution privileges to display this prompt and then run the exec?

I just don't wan to have to open a shell and switch to root every time I want to run this exec.

That's due to management by PAM.


See 'man consolehelper' to find out how this mechanism works and suggestions for making it work for other applications.


The right approach if using a shell would not be to switch to root but use Sudo.

Thanks, although I'm getting "The exec() call failed" after setting it up by following this guide http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks...gRoot#line-169.

I couldn't find anything useful on google about the error. Will this work if the program I'm running is a shell script?

the admin tools do require root privileges to run .That is normal

type in the root password in the pop up or start them as root

Example works for me. Please post the complete set of commands and the contents of the required files.


With the example at the URI you posted that seems smething you could test yourself. However (unless you post reasons) I would still suggest you use sudo as it only requires the unprivileged user to only know its password and not roots.


That's stating the obvious, isn't it?


I don't think you've read his OP well.

I don't know how I would have got that error if I didn't test it for myself. My reason was already stated. I don't want to have to run the script from the cli.

I followed the example exactly. I simply replaced "xterm-root" with myApp and PROGRAM was set to the full path to my shell script.

Anyway, I'm thinking shell scripts don't work with this. I found out that exec() is a C API (don't know if it's part of the standard or not). But it simply takes the program you point it to and replaces what was running with that program. So I don't think a shell script would work with this because of that. I was hoping I could do PROGRAM=/bin/sh <path to my shell script>. I think that gave some parsing error. Don't remember what it was. I couldn't find any documentation on if it is possible to pass args to the app that PROGRAM is set to.