Arch Linux

rehono

Member

Registered: 2015-06-15

Posts: 16

[SOLVED] xfce4 polkit not working

I read the polkit and xfce wiki a couple of times and I still can't figure out what the problem is.

It says that in xfce everything should work automagically, unfortunately that is not true in my case.

Under Settings Manager > Session and Statup > Application Autostart
PolicyKit Authentication Agent is checked to autostart.

I also tried xfce-polkit-git from aur and during install removed polkit-gnome because of conflict.
It worked great after installation but after reboot I get error dialog and it stops working again.
The error just says "error xfce policykit agent" and I clicked ok on the dialog.
The error did not appear when I unchecked /usr/lib/xfce-polkit/xfce-polkit in xfce autostart menu but I still didn't username/password popup when starting gparted from menu or trying to mount hdd (w/ gvfs) within thunar.
I went back to polkit-gnome, still not working but no error popup on login.

In the past I haven't had this issue and I don't know why it started with this install of arch.
From searching everywhere I can't find a solution. Maybe I need to configure something but I don't know what.

systemctl status polkit.service
● polkit.service - Authorization Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/polkit.service; static; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2015-08-21 10:11:58 PDT; 1 day 20h ago
     Docs: man:polkit(8)
 Main PID: 511
   CGroup: /system.slice/polkit.service
           └─511 n/a

Aug 21 10:50:33 corn polkitd[511]: Registered Authentication Agent for unix-process:3121:244360 (system bus name :1.27 [/usr/bin/pkttyagent --notify-fd 5 --fallback], object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.utf8)
Aug 21 10:50:33 corn polkitd[511]: Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-process:3121:244360 (system bus name :1.27, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.utf8) (disconnected from bus)
Aug 21 10:50:37 corn polkitd[511]: Registered Authentication Agent for unix-process:3187:244729 (system bus name :1.28 [/usr/bin/pkttyagent --notify-fd 5 --fallback], object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.utf8)
Aug 21 10:50:37 corn polkitd[511]: Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-process:3187:244729 (system bus name :1.28, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.utf8) (disconnected from bus)
Aug 21 10:50:44 corn polkitd[511]: Registered Authentication Agent for unix-process:2224:142928 (system bus name :1.29 [pkexec --user root gparted], object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8)
Aug 21 10:50:47 corn polkitd[511]: Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-process:2224:142928 (system bus name :1.29, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8) (disconnected from bus)
Aug 21 10:50:47 corn polkitd[511]: Operator of unix-process:2224:142928 FAILED to authenticate to gain authorization for action org.archlinux.pkexec.gparted for unix-process:2224:142928 [bash] (owned by unix-user:b)
Aug 21 10:50:57 corn polkitd[511]: Registered Authentication Agent for unix-process:2224:142928 (system bus name :1.30 [pkexec --user root gparted], object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8)
Aug 21 10:50:58 corn polkitd[511]: Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-process:2224:142928 (system bus name :1.30, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8) (disconnected from bus)
Aug 21 10:50:58 corn polkitd[511]: Operator of unix-process:2224:142928 FAILED to authenticate to gain authorization for action org.archlinux.pkexec.gparted for unix-process:2224:142928 [bash] (owned by unix-user:b)

/usr/lib/polkit-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:7121): polkit-gnome-1-WARNING **: Unable to determine the session we are in: No session for pid 7121

gparted_polkit
Error executing command as another user: No authentication agent found.

Last edited by rehono (2015-09-06 21:28:54)

toz

Member

Registered: 2011-10-28

Posts: 497

Re: [SOLVED] xfce4 polkit not working

IIRC, some time ago, there was an issue where gnome-polkit changed and would only autostart in gnome. This caused issues for non-gnome users. It was suggested to use lxpolkit as an alternative. Since then, lxpolkit has been absorbed into the lxsession package.

I currently have lxsession installed and it provides lxpolkit which is autostarted in the startup applications and provides an authentication agent.

Alad

Wiki Admin/IRC Op

From: Bagelstan

Registered: 2014-05-04

Posts: 2,418

Website

Re: [SOLVED] xfce4 polkit not working

gnome-polkit works for me under XFCE, both with xinitrc and SDDM. How do you login to your session?

---

Mods are just community members who have the occasionally necessary option to move threads around and edit posts. -- Trilby

rehono

Member

Registered: 2015-06-15

Posts: 16

Re: [SOLVED] xfce4 polkit not working

IIRC, some time ago, there was an issue where gnome-polkit changed and would only autostart in gnome. This caused issues for non-gnome users. It was suggested to use lxpolkit as an alternative. Since then, lxpolkit has been absorbed into the lxsession package.

I currently have lxsession installed and it provides lxpolkit which is autostarted in the startup applications and provides an authentication agent.

I will try out lxpolkit and report back. edit: i get "polkit no session for pid" error on login. So not working.

gnome-polkit works for me under XFCE, both with xinitrc and SDDM. How do you login to your session?

I use lightdm.

edit:
comment #1 on launchpad bug report suggests:

I filed this bug because I have tried all known workarounds, but failed to resolve the problem:

- appended to /etc/pam.d/lightdm
       session required pam_loginuid.so
       session required pam_systemd.so

- ran 'sudo pam-auth-update --force'

- reinstalled policykit-1 and libpam packages

- reinstalled 'sudo' package

- removed Skype

I don't know what arch equivalent of pam-auth-update --force is.

Last edited by rehono (2015-08-24 08:16:53)

qwerty12

Member

From: London

Registered: 2011-06-20

Posts: 34

Re: [SOLVED] xfce4 polkit not working

On the ArchWiki Security page, there's a section on a kernel feature called hidepid. If you followed the instructions there, undo the steps.

Chazza

Wiki Maintainer

Registered: 2013-06-02

Posts: 506

Re: [SOLVED] xfce4 polkit not working

IIRC, some time ago, there was an issue where gnome-polkit changed and would only autostart in gnome. This caused issues for non-gnome users. It was suggested to use lxpolkit as an alternative. Since then, lxpolkit has been absorbed into the lxsession package.

I currently have lxsession installed and it provides lxpolkit which is autostarted in the startup applications and provides an authentication agent.

That's not the issue here. The polkit-gnome autostart file was indeed removed upstream some time ago but the Arch xfce4-session package now provides an autostart file for polkit-gnome instead - that's why the wiki says everything should work automagically.

Last edited by Chazza (2015-09-03 14:24:59)

toz

Member

Registered: 2011-10-28

Posts: 497

Re: [SOLVED] xfce4 polkit not working

IIRC, some time ago, there was an issue where gnome-polkit changed and would only autostart in gnome. This caused issues for non-gnome users. It was suggested to use lxpolkit as an alternative. Since then, lxpolkit has been absorbed into the lxsession package.

I currently have lxsession installed and it provides lxpolkit which is autostarted in the startup applications and provides an authentication agent.

That's not the issue here. The polkit-gnome autostart file was indeed removed upstream some time ago but the Arch xfce4-session package now provides an autostart file for polkit-gnome instead - that's why the wiki says everything should work automagically.

Yes. The desktop file is included as a patch in the Arch package. I'm running the git version of Xfce and upstream's xfce4-session doesn't have that addition (I've been using lxpolkit since the polkit-gnome autostart file was removed). My bad.

rehono

Member

Registered: 2015-06-15

Posts: 16

Re: [SOLVED] xfce4 polkit not working

On the ArchWiki Security page, there's a section on a kernel feature called hidepid. If you followed the instructions there, undo the steps.

Thank you.

Last edited by rehono (2015-09-06 21:29:53)