Re: FVWM: Help required.

From: <jtl_at_cs.man.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 14:01:26 +0100

> From: "Thomas A. Gardiner" <gardiner_at_pas.rochester.edu>

> As for shutting down there are a couple of possibilities which have been
> suggested in the past. One is
...

Here's two more suggestions:

1) If you're on RH6, then you'll (probably) have a package installed called
`usermode'. This provides a program /usr/bin/shutdown (among others). It pops
up a dialogue, prompts for the *user's* password, and shuts the machine down!

So add a menu item somewhere (see AddToMenu in man fvwm2):

        + "Shut down" Exec /usr/bin/shutdown -h now

and perhaps also

        + "Reboot" Exec /usr/bin/shutdown -r now

(I'm going to add this feature to my AnotherLevelUp package soon.)

2) Add a user called stop -- then you can shutdown at the login prompt. This
may not be wise in a `hostile' environment -e.g. if your machine has a
permanent internet connection. It definitely works if you have text logins, I
haven't tried it with xdm/gdm, but it ought to work.

In /etc/passwd, add the line (as root, carefully)

        stop:XX:0:0::/sbin:/sbin/shutdown -h now

assuming that shutdown lives in /sbin. Note that this is the real shutdown
command, rather than the gui wrapper for it mentioned above, which is (may be)
in /usr/bin. This new user is an alias for root, so make sure it appears AFTER
the entry for root in the passwd file (otherwise all/most references to the
user root will appear as stop!).

Now set the password for stop, running (still as root):

        passwd stop

and follow instructions. You may find an empty password is permitted by passwd
(after it objects about it being `WAY too short') but does not work when you
try to use it, depending on the `pam' set up for logins. However, you should
be able to get a nice short password (single character?) to work, even though
passwd will object when you set it.

Regards, John
--
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Received on Thu Apr 06 2000 - 08:12:14 BST

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