Server Tools Don't Prompt for Root Password

[Randy Chrismon]

Matthew Miller wrote:

>On Tue, Nov 23, 2004 at 08:54:45PM -0500, Randy Chrismon wrote:
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>>From the 'rpm' man page -- the "M" means the 'mode' (a.k.a. file
>permissions) have changed. And, as the first error message above indicates,
>this binary needs to be setuid root -- that is, owned by root and have the
>setuid file permission.
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>Have you run any scripts to "secure" your system? An overzealous [1]
>security sweep could very easily choose to remove that bit....
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>(The "G" is also a little bit disturbing -- it means the group ownership has
>changed, and on my system, it's in group "root". Odd for that to change.)
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Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!
Two lessons: 1. I don't know what I'm doing, generally, and particularly 
with file permissions and user rights. 2. Don't do things when you don't 
know what you're doing.
A few days before I noticed the problem, I did a chown on one of the 
/usr subdirectories (I don't even remember which one, now) so I could 
execute an executable of some sort. That's probably where things got 
messed up. Don't ask me what I was thinking because I probably wasn't.

Anyway, I've changed the user:group back to root:root. Now, I don't even 
get the insufficient privileges message box. Whatever system setting app 
now just refuses to start. OTOH, now I know what I did wrong, where I 
did it, and what man pages to look at. Thanks for all the help; I 
wouldn't have made it this far, otherwise.
Randy