Todd Zullinger wrote:
Norm wrote:
When running in Gnome some applications when the start require the
root pasword to continue, others such as the gui interface for nmap
will open with limited options available. It is simple enough to
switch to a command line process to run it but I am looking for a
way to switch to root or sudo during the process of starting the
application. Is there a simple modification to the open command in
the GUI interface to call for the entry of a password to open the
application as root
The apps that request a password use consolehelper for this. If you
wanted to make nmap run as root, you could add a file in
/etc/security/console.apps/ and create a symlink to consolehelper in
/usr/bin.
See the consolehelper man page and use the existing apps as a
guide to configuring nmap.
There was a thread on this last week and alternatives such as gksu and
gksudo were discussed. Those tools can be useful in some situations,
but they aren't included in Fedora as running gui apps as root opens
up some cans of security worms.
The approach that's best for you depends on how much of a security
freak you are and on how many apps you want to run as root.
For nmap, I personally just use sudo nmap in a terminal when I need to
do some auditing/scanning.
Thanks Todd
I must have been asleep last week when the thread was discussed.
running nmap as sudo in a terminal is probably the best way. I only
used nmap as an example or the situation I was thinking of. I haven't
tried your solution yet but it will probably work well fro some of the
other situations I have run across.
Thanks for your help
Norm
