Bug 101170

Summary:	Need root password to see --help output for root apps
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	aaron weber <aaron>
Component:	usermode	Assignee:	Jindrich Novy <jnovy>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	David Lawrence <dkl>
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	8.0	CC:	mitr, pknirsch
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i686
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2005-01-20 15:13:51 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description aaron weber 2003-07-29 19:43:09 UTC

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686) Gecko/20030702 Galeon/1.3.5

Description of problem:
You need your root password to display the --help or usage information for a
root-level command; you should be able to get that information without the root
password.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
1.63-1

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Given a graphical root-level application, open a terminal and run it as a normal
user. For example:

/usr/sbin/gdmconfig --help

Instead of getting the expected --help output, you are prompted for your
password. Only after entering the root password do you get the output.



Additional info:

Definite low or wishlist bug. Workaround: just become root or enter root password.

Comment 1 Jindrich Novy 2005-01-20 15:13:51 UTC

I think it's a possible security risk. In my opinion an unauthorized
person shouldn't be able to read even a help for an application that
needs authentication via usermode utilities.