Reboot from CDE Front Panel?

[Matt Wardle]

Is is possible to add an Option to reboot the workstation from the CDE front panel, like it is in Gnome (and most other desktops!!)

I don't think it's easy, but anyone any ideas?

Cheers,

Matt.

[Pete Randall]

Matt,

Sure, it's possible but you have to be root to issue the reboot or shutdown commands so you'll have to create an action on the front panel that invokes a suid script to accomplish this. As a general rule, suid scripts are considered security risks and you'll have to ask yourself if having a user be able to reboot his workstation at will is worth it.

I would have to ask why there is a need for this at all.


Pete

[Marvin Strong]

You could also just add the user to the shutdown.allow file on that workstation.

[Matt Wardle]

Sorry - maybe I wasn't clear, I meant the CDE login screen. Maybe put something under the Options menu or a seperate button.

We need users to be able to reboot as we're 24/7 and w/s can only be rebooted at 7z and 20z, when shifts change. They need to reboot because the file table fills up due to our applications leaving some open - it's a gradual process. Yes I know we could fix the application! But that's development and not support.

Cheers.

[Pete Randall]

Matt,

I still wouldn't give the users the ability to reboot at will. I would set this up in root's crontab with the following entry:
00 07,20 * * * /usr/sbin/shutdown -r -y 60 1>/dev/null 2>&1

This will reboot the workstation every day at 0700 and 2000. You could set it to just weekdays with:

00 07,20 * * 1-5 /usr/sbin/shutdown -r -y 60 1>/dev/null 2>&1


Pete