Shutdown Linux server with shutdown user

How to enable the shutdown user on RedHat Enterprise Linux (and alike systems) so it can be used to shutdown the system without having to use the root user?

Set a password for the user:

passwd shutdown

Edit the file ''/etc/sudoers'':

visudo

Add this line to it (or enable/change an existing line):

shutdown localhost=NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown –h now

It will limit the action to logins on the console itself. So remotely the command will not work. If you want to, change it to

shutdown ALL=NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown –h now

to be used without password or

shutdown ALL=/sbin/shutdown –h now

to be used with entering the sudo password. Change the login shell for user shutdown:

vi /etc/passwd

Find the shutdown entry and change the part after the last colon to:

/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/shutdown –h now

Now you can login with the user shutdown and see how the system goes down.