allow non-root user to stop/start xen host

[Gary Siao]

hi gurus

i am a newbie to XEN and would like to know if there's a way to allow
non-root user to use the XM command to stop and start XEN VM hosts.

thanks !

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 02:29:38PM -0500, Gary Siao wrote:
>  hi gurus
>  
>  i am a newbie to XEN and would like to know if there's a way to allow
>  non-root user to use the XM command to stop and start XEN VM hosts. 
No standard tools allow this[1]. Letting non-root users stop/start guests is 
a potential security hole, because the back-end drivers for the guest access 
many privileged files / system resources in Dom0.

Regards,
Dan.

[1] Well technically you can enable HTTP access in XenD, but this is akin
    to running a telnet / ssh server with no root password - incredibly
    foolish if you care about integrity of your machine.
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[Adrian Chadd]

On Fri, Dec 08, 2006, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>  On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 02:29:38PM -0500, Gary Siao wrote:
>  > hi gurus
>  > 
>  > i am a newbie to XEN and would like to know if there's a way to allow
>  > non-root user to use the XM command to stop and start XEN VM hosts.
>  
>  No standard tools allow this[1]. Letting non-root users stop/start guests is 
>  a potential security hole, because the back-end drivers for the guest access 
>  many privileged files / system resources in Dom0. 
You could also use sudo. xm is just 'another command' (with, as Daniel said,
all the potential security issues.)


Adrian