Removing root password requirement on kppp dialer.

[nemeswormwood]

Searching the forums results in many people wanting to know how to configure the kppp dialer so that users did not have to type in the root password in order to go online.

This solution worked for me on my computer running Redhat 7.3. It was the result of a post started by dvdnut (http://www.linuxnewbie.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17817&highlight=kppp+root+password) . Below is a summary...

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Open a text console and type

cd /usr/bin
su
[then enter your root password]
mv kppp kppp.original
ln -s /usr/sbin/kppp
chmod +s /usr/sbin/kppp
chmod +s /usr/sbin/pppd
exit
exit


Now the dialer shortcut should work.

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I can't guarantee that this is the correct or most secure way to do it as I don't fully understand why there are 2 kppp dialers myself but it does work. :-)

Thanks

Nemes

[fancypiper]

The simplest and most secure way is to add the user to the group allowed to use ppp.

Just edit /etc/group and add the user. pppusers:x:44:<username>, <username2>

Or, by the command
usermod -G pppusers <username>

[nemeswormwood]

I undid all the changes I made and tried fancypipers method although it didn't seem to work.

The /etc/group file does exist although adding the following line according to the instructions seemed to have no effect.

pppusers:x:44:Brendan

(incidently, what is the delimiter between usernames? Looking at the rest of the file, it seems to be commas, is this right?)

Also the distribution i'm using (Redhat 7.3) doesn't recognise the 'usermode' command.

Thanks for the help anyway.

Nemes

[fancypiper]

Oops! Typo!usermod -G pppusers <username>

Redhat should have usermod installed.

Yes, it is commas to separate.

[Flowbs]

What's always worked for me (have been using this in each RH dist since Red Hat 5.2) is to add the following line in /etc/pam.d/kppp

auth sufficient /lib/security/pam_console.so

That way you are not making kppp suid.

[nemeswormwood]

fancypiper ...

I have found the 'usermod' command now (it was not on the default path, it was in the /usr/sbin directory.) However kppusers is not a group that I can choose from. The following are groups that exist ....

root
bin
wheel
users
mail
news
uucp
man
floppy
daemon
games
slocate
utmp
nscd
rpcuser
sys
gopher
rpc
rpm
ntp
adm
dip
xfs
mailnull
tty
ftp
brendan (my username)
lock
disk
nfsnobody
wine
vcsa
lp
radvd
mem
kmem
ident
nobody

Which group to I have to assign users to for them to use kppp dialer? Also where can I find out what all these groups privelages are?

Regards

Nemes