add/remove software - authorization failed

[coverup]

I am no longer able to install software using Add/Remove Software in the Gnome menu nor I can change frequency using the CPU scaling monitor. It used to be that I was asked for root password before applying these changes - not anymore. I just get straight "Authorization Failed" message. What could possibly be broken?

[RalphEllis]

Just as a quick test, create a new use with access to the wheel group. If a newly created user can access Add Remove Programs but you cannot, then the problem is not a system issue.
If
System - User and Groups
does not work. Then do it via the command line.

If you cannot successfully, use
su
rootpassword
in terminal. Then the problem is a deeper system one. In some systems, this was a problem where the root password expired but RHEL has not had this problem. Curiously enough, Solaris 11 Express did.

If the root password is working when you do
su
rootpassword
in a terminal, then you have some options.
Start off with
yum check
yum update --skip-broken
You can also try
yum install beesu
or
yum install sudo
to get root access.
If you have KDE installed, you could also try
kdesu gpk-application
You should get a warning but you will be able to run Add Remove Software as root.

You could also check your user settings to make sure that you have not somehow been removed from the wheel group.
Hopefully, you can get a handle on this.

[coverup]

Thanks for the reply. Changing user to root (su rootpassword) in the terminal works fine. The rest of the tests may take some time. Will report back.

[coverup]

QUOTE (coverup @ Jan 2 2012, 05:24 AM)

Thanks for the reply. Changing user to root (su rootpassword) in the terminal works fine. The rest of the tests may take some time. Will report back.

Ok, when I go to System -> Administration -> Users and Groups, I am asked for the root password, as expected.
Also yum check from the root console reports nothing noteworthy

CODE

# yum check Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit check all

[RalphEllis]

This is an awkward case. su is working and Users and Groups prompts you for a password. It could be something Gnome related but I have not seen it before. You could just run
gpk-application
as root when you need to have access to it. It is the same as being prompted for a root password before doing any major changes.
You could try searching for bug reports for gpk-application to see if anyone else in the RHEL world is hitting this problem. It must be some minor configuration file that is causing the issue.