CONSOLEHELPER(8)					     CONSOLEHELPER(8)



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  admin-
       istrator'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 "shut-
       down" 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 pro-
       gram  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	 cre-
       ate  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)

BUGS
       No known bugs.  Report any you find at http://developer.redhat.com/ at
       the BugTrack link.

AUTHOR
       Michael K. Johnson 



Red Hat Software		18 March 1999		     CONSOLEHELPER(8)

UNIX/Linux commands referenced on this page:

1. users
2. at
3. link
4. make
5. file
6. find