Does anyone know how to solve this problem I’m having with opensuse 11.0 (KDE 3.9.5 or 4)? At every shutdown or restart I am required to provide root authorisation (root password), even if I have not opened a root session and left the session open before returning to a normal user.
This strikes me as a potential security issue because it suggests that root has opened a session automatically at startup without my authorisation.
Thanks in advance for your help! 
This has nothing to do with a root login in the GUI (which should NEVER been done).
As I have a dutch translation of KDE I will try to translate back to english, but the wording may be different in reality.
For KDE 3.5.9 (KDE 4 must have something similar):
Configuration Center > System Management > Logon Screen and then tab Logout. Now first click the System Management Mode button below (and enter the root password). You now can change the things displayed, among them if it is only root or also others that may shutdown. May be you have to logout of KDE after this change to make it active. After that the System Shutdown will be an option in the shutdown window.
Many thanks. All that happens now is that I get a request to confirm the shutdown. The two shutdown alternatives seem to be ‘local’ and ‘remote’, and in my case the remote shutdown was permitted by root only, local by everybody. Now I allow nobody to shutdown remotely and the problem has gone.