Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc

so there is an internal check to see if the process is running with root privileges, and in your case it isn't. If you REALLY need to run this as yourself and not root, you would need to set the suid bit on the file: chmod u+s shutdown then it will assume the identity of the file owner (root in this case) when it runs. An ls -l would then reveal -rwsr-xr-x …

Mike.