Let a common user shutdown and reboot

From Gentoo Linux Wiki

[edit] Introduction

The aim of this tutorial is to allow a common user to shutdown or reboot his/her own machine. This tutorial is not intended to those who use a login manager (such as GDM, KDM and XDM) but instead to those who prefer the console.

First we have to install sudo:

emerge -av app-admin/sudo

Now we have to edit its configuration file. We can easily do this running visudo - it will launch an editor specified in the EDITOR environment variable, and prevent /etc/sudoers from damage by concurrent edits. Add the following lines to your /etc/sudoers. Now you have to add all users you want to allow to shutdown or reboot your machine:

 Substitute "user" with your username:
user ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown

This enables you to shutdown your computer using this command:

sudo /sbin/shutdown -h now

and reboot it using

sudo /sbin/shutdown -r now 

You can also create two aliases in the .bashrc:

alias rb="sudo /sbin/shutdown -r now"
alias sd="sudo /sbin/shutdown -h now"

As an alternative, you can create two scripts that will work independently of your current shell. The content of the shutdown script is:

#!/bin/bash
sudo /sbin/shutdown -h now

The content of the reboot script is:

#!/bin/bash
sudo /sbin/shutdown -r now

Now you need to change the permissions of both scripts:

chmod 744 /sbin/rb /sbin/sd

Whenever you want to shutdown the machine, you just have to type sd and to reboot you can type rb.

[edit] Useful links

• Original Thread
• Solution to Gnome 2 shutdown/reboot command problem on Gentoo Discussion Forums