[TriLUG] RH 8.0 desktop root auth. tool

[Jeremy Portzer]

On Thu, 2003-01-02 at 00:29, Matt Matthews wrote:

> 
> If they're doing it like I recall the modem dialer on previous versions of Red
> Hat, then every app that would require root access was actually a symlink to a
> proxy app that would ask for the root password and then start the app with
> which the proxy app was initially invoked ($0, I guess?). Is this still the
> way it's done? Even if I've got this half right, I'm still looking for
> details... :^)

Right, the "proxy app" is called "consolehelper" (there's also a
"userhelper" for other situations).  The way it works is that the
symlink to consolehelper is in /usr/bin, and the actual application is
in /usr/sbin.  So if you want to call the app without the "front end" of
consolehelper, you can just run it from /usr/sbin.  You'll probably want
to download the "usermode" SRPM from a red hat mirror and crack it open
to see the details.

--Jeremy