Re: [gentoo-user] gnome login panel how to disable restart and shutdown buttons

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 5:28 AM,  <covici@××××××××××.com> wrote:
> Peter Humphrey <peter@××××××××××××××.org> wrote:
>
>> On Monday 26 April 2010 10:06:53 covici@××××××××××.com wrote:
>>
>> > Using gdm when I am at the login screen there  are two buttons --
>> > restart and shutdown and if you push one by accident it does the
>> > action without asking for any kind of password or any authentication
>> > at all -- how do I fix this
>>
>> Use the keyboard instead. You already have your hands on it to type your
>> password, no?
>>
>> > seems like a big security hole to me.
>>
>> To me it seems like rational behaviour. You tell it to shut down - it
>> shuts down. Or do you want Gnome to be like Windows and challenge every
>> action you give it?
>>
>
> I don't want a non-root user to be able to shut the computer down -- I
> did it my mistake and its strange to have it there anyway -- least it
> should do is ask for the root password.
>

It's a very reasonable request he's making. I have a machine that's a
MythTV backend server. It sits quietly in our living room doing it's
job, but it only does that roughly 4 hours per day so for 20 hours it
wastes electricity. To make more use of the hardware my wife and son
use it at times to browse the web. They are used to shutting off other
computers and they sometimes make mistakes and shut this machine off
so we lose recordings. If the buttons didn't exist then they wouldn't
make that mistake.

If the buttons required them to type a non-root password used to allow
a user to shut the machine down then they'd remember that this machine
is different and not make that mistake.

I personally think covici's request is very reasonable.

- Mark