grant root privileges to ordinary user


 
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Operating Systems Linux grant root privileges to ordinary user
# 1  
Old 09-08-2008
grant root privileges to ordinary user

Hi,
Is it possible to grant root privileges to an ordinary user?
Other than 'sudo', is there some way under Users/Groups configuration?
I want ordinary user to be able to mount, umount and use command mt.
/Brendan
# 2  
Old 09-08-2008
This is not a great idea - do you want smbmount or mount?
This makes the smbmount be setuid - it runs as the root user.
Code:
ln -s /usr/bin/smbmnt /bin/smbmnt
chmod u+s /usr/bin/smbmnt

This would let users mount (& unmount if you setuid the the other file-smbunmount) Windows SMB mounted filesystems. Which is possibly the only valid mount/unmount you would want users doing. Otherwise they could trash your system. setuid on anything like mount is both a security risk and an open can of worms, waiting to crawl out.

Last edited by jim mcnamara; 09-08-2008 at 01:04 PM..
# 3  
Old 09-08-2008
u can use the RBAC concept for ur idea.
create a role
create a user
modify the role to profile
modify the role to user
login as localuser
execute the command
# 4  
Old 09-08-2008
if its only to "mount" and "umount" then you can use the "users" option for the mount point in /etc/fstab
# 5  
Old 09-09-2008
From man mount :

Quote:
(iii) Normally, only the superuser can mount file systems. However, when fstab contains the user option on
a line, anybody can mount the corresponding system.

Thus, given a line
/dev/cdrom /cd iso9660 ro,user,noauto,unhide
any user can mount the iso9660 file system found on his CDROM using the command
mount /dev/cdrom
or
mount /cd
For more details, see fstab(5). Only the user that mounted a filesystem can unmount it again. If any user
should be able to unmount, then use users instead of user in the fstab line. The owner option is similar to
the user option, with the restriction that the user must be the owner of the special file. This may be use-
ful e.g. for /dev/fd if a login script makes the console user owner of this device. The group option is
similar, with the restriction that the user must be member of the group of the special file.
Regards
-AJ
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