logging in via kppp ONLY with superuser-rigths possible?

[philippjosefric]

I used to run Mandrake 10.0, where users could gain access to internet via kppp without knowing the superuser-password.

Now I installed FC3 and realized, that kppp needs root-password. Is that the only way?
Do I have to tell all users the root-passwd? this is not very safe.

I tried to chgrp anwender /usr/bin/kppp
but this made only possible for the anwender to strt kppp, but kppp keeps asking for the root-passwd!

Thanks for help
Philipp

[vinu]

You can set kppp SUID root by doing a "chmod 4755 /usr/sbin/kppp" as root. However, be aware of the security implications of doing this on a multi-user system before you do so.

[philippjosefric]

I did
chmod 4755 /usr/sbin/kppp

Result:
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 677868 30. Sep 2004 /usr/sbin/kppp

But still I am asked for the root-password.
Which other childproceses, which need root-privilege are necessary?

Thanks for help
philipp

[ddnev]

There is a symlink kppp in /usr/bin that points to consolehelper (?) and that requires the root password. I did a chmod on /usr/sbin/kppp (the binary) then deleted and recreated the kppp symlink in /usr/bin to point at the modified /usr/sbin/kppp. That fixed the root password issue on my machine.

[ddnev]

From a different forum:

1. rm /usr/bin/kppp
2. chmod u+s /usr/sbin/kppp
3. ln -s /usr/sbin/kppp /usr/bin/kppp

The first line removes a symbolic link to the real binary. The second line changes the permissions on kppp so that it will run as root no matter what user runs the program. The last line re-creates the link that you removed in the first step. The net effect is that the binary runs as root, no matter what the UID of the user running the program. This means that you don't have to supply a root password.

[KC_Masterpiece]

Ah, so simple. I also needed to do this and that works nicely. There are a million simple fixes like this in linux. That's why regular users find it so hard. I hope that this stuff becomes second nature to me. Now I just plug in other peoples fixes. So thanks for the fix ddnev!