NAME

       consolehelper - A wrapper that helps console users run system programs

SYNOPSIS

       progname [ options ]

DESCRIPTION

       consolehelper is a tool that makes it easy for console users to run system programs, doing
       authentication via PAM (which can be set up to trust all console users or  to  ask  for  a
       password  at the system administrator's discretion).  When possible, the authentication is
       done graphically; otherwise, it is done within the text console from  which  consolehelper
       was started.

       It  is intended to be completely transparent.  This means that the user will never run the
       consolehelper program directly.  Instead, programs like /sbin/shutdown are paired  with  a
       link   from   /usr/bin/shutdown  to  /usr/bin/consolehelper.   Then  when  non-root  users
       (specifically, users without /sbin in their  path,  or  /sbin  after  /usr/bin)  call  the
       "shutdown"  program,  consolehelper  will  be  invoked to authenticate the action and then
       invoke  /sbin/shutdown.   (consolehelper  itself  has  no  priviledges;   it   calls   the
       userhelper(8) program do the real work.)

       consolehelper  requires  that  a PAM configuration for every managed program exist.  So to
       make /sbin/foo or /usr/sbin/foo managed, you need to create a link  from  /usr/bin/foo  to
       /usr/bin/consolehelper   and   create   the   file   /etc/pam.d/foo,  normally  using  the
       pam_console(8) PAM module.

OPTIONS

       This program has no command line options of its own; it passes all command line options on
       to the program it is calling.

SEE ALSO

       userhelper(8)

AUTHOR

       Michael K. Johnson <johnsonm@redhat.com>