[ImNeat]

Right now all my users need to be root to issue the command
dhcpcd -d eth0
to connect to the internet.

I would like all my users to have this power. What do I need to do to allow regular users to issue the command?

[Juan Pablo]

It's not a direct solution but you can use "sudo"

[ImNeat]

I don't think you can sudo in arch, I'd prolly have to add it somehow. But even so, that still requires the root password which is what I'm trying to prevent needing.

[Juan Pablo]

You can use "sudo" in any distro, but you have to edit the sudoers file, it doesn't work out of the box. You can set sudo just for one command and use it without root password but again, you need to install it and edit the sudoers file

[anomie]

ImNeat, if Arch does not come with sudo, surely you can install it. By default sudo prompts for the password of the invoking user (not root), and you can even turn that off if you're so inclined. There is very thorough documentation in man 5 sudoers.

--------------------------------------------

But... ignoring sudo for the moment:

Why do you not have eth0 obtain an IP address via dhcp at boot time? Is there a reason to jump through extra hoops and run the command yourself?

[ImNeat]

So there's no way to set it up so that a regular user can

dhcpcd eth1

or

shutdown -h now

?!
Logging in as root or sudoing are the only options?

That's strange...

[theLinuxPeasant]

Check this out, it may help.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/misc/57563-halt-reboot-permissons-normal-user.html?highlight=shutdown+user

[ImNeat]

I ended up just installing sudo, and setting it up so that certain users can issue certain root commands without password:

#/etc/sudoers
user1        ALL = NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown
user1        ALL = NOPASSWD: /sbin/dhcpcd
user1        ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/dhcpcd
user1        ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/iwconfig
user1        ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/iwlist  

user2        ALL = NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown
user2        ALL = NOPASSWD: /sbin/dhcpcd
user2        ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/dhcpcd
user2        ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/iwconfig
user2        ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/iwlist

Wasn't sure if I needed to add /sbin or /usr/sbin for dhcpcd so I added both... (what's the difference?)

Now

[user1/2@vaio ~]# sudo shutdown -h now

works without password.

Thanks to all for the replies.

[ImNeat]

Does anyone know how to set sudo flags? I would like to set the insult flag:

insults If set, sudo will insult users when they enter an incorrect
password. This flag is off by default.

^from the sudoers manpage.

I still suck at reading/understanding manpages, so I can't decipher how to enable the flag/parameter.

[Juan Pablo]

Wasn't sure if I needed to add /sbin or /usr/sbin for dhcpcd so I added both... (what's the difference?)

Whre the binary is, /sbin is for essential system binaries, /usr/sbin is for non-essential system binaries



Sorry, I don't know about "sudo" flags