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Giving a user reboot capabilities

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I have a client that I have setup different services on Linux, NT, and AS400 servers. Occassionally there is a need to reboot the Linux (RH6.0) machine, specifically when the AS400 has gone down and has come back on line and also when an application running in IBM’s Websphere Application Server locks up. In these instances the applications will not work correctly unless the Linux machine is rebooted. I would like to give a local user account permissions to reboot with out giving them the ability to be superuser. I see the “give shutdown permissions” in linuxconf but no reboot. Is this possible? How would it be done?

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Giving a user reboot capabilities

In reply to Giving a user reboot capabilities

I believe that if you give them shutdown permissions, this will accomplish the goal.
They will just need to enter “shutdown -r now” and the system will shutdown and restart (i.e. reboot).

The risk, of course, is that they will enter “shutdown -hnow” and the system will halt but maybe you could do something like a batch file to prevent a typo.

regards!

paul

Paul M. Wright, Jr.
McKay Technologies

Giving a user reboot capabilities

In reply to Giving a user reboot capabilities

Paul,

I have attempted this previous to and since I posted the question and it does not seem to work. I made a small file which has the /sbin/shutdown -r now command in it. When implementing the command the user (that has shutdown rights) is prompted for a password. The password is input and nothing happens. I will attempt on a back up machine and see if the problem is machine specific.

MK

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