Version: (using KDE KDE 3.1.4) Installed from: SuSE RPMs I'd love to be able to configure who can shutdown the machine and who can't. But I don't want to reveal the root-pw to all those who should be allowed to do it. I'd love either to define a so called "shutdown-password" in kdmrc which may be different from the root-pw or I'd like to define the users who are allowed to shutdown and who authenticate using their own passwords. Thanks for the great work!
Another possible solution would be to have a "shutdown" group and to allow all members in this group to shutdown the computer. The identity could be verified by giving them the option to shut down the computer when logged in. In other words: When I'm logged in and select "logout" (or press Ctrl-Alt-Del) I'm presented with a menu to logout or to shutdown the computer. I know this feature is present when everybody is allowed to shutdown the computer so I believe it should be quite straightforward to allow this to the members of a specific group.
IMHO this feature is not really needed. There is an option "local users" for KDM so locally logged in users can shut down the machine. Anybody who is logged in locally can also just press the reset button or cut the power cord or kill the room's fuse, so disabling this option for local users makes no sense. For remote users, you can (as a workaround) define a passwordless "sudo" command that executes shutdown for certain users, and create a desktop icon for this purpose. However, as remote users wouldn't be able to boot the machine up again, I don't know how much sense this feature makes. ;) Jens
and i've seen a computer in a cage ... i think it's sort of logical to restrict physical access to machines in public places. of course this does not preclude sabotaging the system in drastic ways, but it prevents certain "practical jokes". that in such a setup no centralized shutdown facility exists is relatively improbable, but who knows.
Well, actually I don't want to have this option to prevent malicious users from sabotaging. And of course you know that there's always a way to do this. And this holds for other areas as well. But there the same holds: I believe you won't publish your root-passwort to everyone working locally on your computer simply because it is possible to shut it down, boot knoppix and access all the files no matter what access they have. Restricting BIOS to disallow booting from CD doesn't help as it's always possible to detach the harddisk and attach it to a different computer... I'd like to have this option in order to stop users from accidentally or unknowingly shutting down the computer when they're not supposed to do it. This holds for my children as well as other (computer-illiterate) people. When I tell my children to NEVER EVER press ANY (reset-/power/...) button on the (hardware-) computer itself as it distroys a lot of data they won't do this (they are lovely kids). But I don't want to have to explain to them which of the many other GUI-software-buttons they may press and which they shouldn't press. These buttons should simply be grayed out for them. But for all the other users who know what it means to shut down a computer and when to do it, I'd like to have an option to allow this (without having to reveal the root-pw).
Why not just look at support for sudo in kdm or desktop. Have the shutdown/restart check the sudoers file to allow shutdown. I have just moved to kdm with kde 4.1 so I still have to learn all the configuration tools. I prefer just to remove the buttons from kdm and if someone wants to shut the computer down, they will have to actually login.
KDM is unmaintained and not used in KDE Plasma 5. SDDM is the login manager used in KDE Plasma 5. If you still have this same issue with SDDM, please file an issue on the SDDM bugtracker (after doing a search for existing issues first!): https://github.com/sddm/sddm/issues/