How do I allow non-root users to install/uninstall/configure softwares ?

[santhoshsd]

Hi,

I have installed MySQL and Apache httpd in Fedora 8 as root.

When I try to start MySQL and httpd as a non-root user, I get error messages
stating that the user does not have permissions to start the services.
I have checked the permissions of mysqld and httpd in /etc/init.d .. both of the files have rwxr-xr-x permissions.

When I add the line
%groupname ALL=(ALL) ALL
in /etc/sudoers, I am able to run the services using sudo.

How do I allow non-root users to install/uninstall/configure softwares and start/stop services ?

I have tried with

SUI=/usr/bin/sudo -i, /bin/su
SOFTWARE=yum
%groupname ALL=(ALL) SOFTWARE, !SUI

in /etc/sudoers

but with this I am not able to start MySQL installed by root.
If I use sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld start
I get the following message : User cannot become root on this machine.

[Lazydog]

First look at Linux File Permissions.
Then Look at how you can Allow Non-root Uses Install Software.
A regular user can install software any place he has rights to do so as in their Home Dir.