"pon dsl-provider" as a regular user?

[Daniel Pittman]

"Donatas G." <dgvirtual at akl.lt> writes:

> Is there a way to start and stop dsl connection as a regular user? Or,
> as a user in a special group?
>
> Sometimes my wife needs to do that (when she gets ip address that is
> blocked by irc network), but she uses a very short password and I
> don't want her to use sudo.

Yes: let her do it with sudo.

Specifically, my suggestion would be to write a brief, secure, shell
script that does the poff and pon or whatever.  Make sure it resets the
PATH, etc, to avoid security risks.

Then grant the account of your wife permission to run that script, and
only that script, as root.  Personally I would just do it with no
password check for that particular action.

Then you can even create a desktop icon that will run the script so that
there is a point and click interface to it.


Anyway, the summary: sudo allows *very* fine grained control over what
the user is allowed to run.  It can be as limited as a single command.

That way you only have the one tool, but the account is limited to the
small number of actions you want it permitted to do.

Regards,
        Daniel
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