NAME
consolehelper - A wrapper that helps console users run system programs
SYNOPSIS
progname [ options ]
DESCRIPTION
consolehelper is a tool that makes it easy for console users to run
system programs, doing authentication via PAM (which can be set up to
trust all console users or to ask for a password at the system
administrator’s discretion). When possible, the authentication is done
graphically; otherwise, it is done within the text console from which
consolehelper was started.
It is intended to be completely transparent. This means that the user
will never run the consolehelper program directly. Instead, programs
like /sbin/shutdown are paired with a link from /usr/bin/shutdown to
/usr/bin/consolehelper. Then when non-root users (specifically, users
without /sbin in their path, or /sbin after /usr/bin) call the
"shutdown" program, consolehelper will be invoked to authenticate the
action and then invoke /sbin/shutdown. (consolehelper itself has no
priviledges; it calls the userhelper(8) program do the real work.)
consolehelper requires that a PAM configuration for every managed
program exist. So to make /sbin/foo or /usr/sbin/foo managed, you need
to create a link from /usr/bin/foo to /usr/bin/consolehelper and create
the file /etc/pam.d/foo, normally using the pam_console(8) PAM module.
OPTIONS
This program has no command line options of its own; it passes all
command line options on to the program it is calling.
SEE ALSO
userhelper(8)
AUTHOR
Michael K. Johnson <johnsonm@redhat.com>