Arch Linux

maggie

Member

Registered: 2011-02-12

Posts: 255

Confused about polkit-gnome and lxpolkit [solved]

I recently updated and new version of goffice and gnumeric came down with this warning:

==> The agent is no longer autostarted by default except in GNOME Flashback.
For Xfce, LXDE etc., "lxpolkit" is the suggested lightweight alternative.
See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Polkit#Authentication_agents for
more details.

I use xfce4 and do not know gnome-polkit installed at all. I removed it and pacman did not complain about dependencies. What exactly do I need lxpolkit for? I am able to use sudo without it.

Last edited by maggie (2013-09-16 15:40:49)

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,259

Re: Confused about polkit-gnome and lxpolkit [solved]

polkit-gnome and lxpolkit request the password for actions which are secured with polkit, e.g. sata device (un)mounting in udisks, firewall settings in gufw, if you use pkexec instead of sudo, ...

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maggie

Member

Registered: 2011-02-12

Posts: 255

Re: Confused about polkit-gnome and lxpolkit [solved]

I see. I don't use udisks or pkexec. Guess I can just install it since it's so small.

renegat

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2012-12-28

Posts: 94

Re: Confused about polkit-gnome and lxpolkit [solved]

I'am confused too:
Using lxde I was not even aware that there is an alternative to polkit-gnome, as it is always
mentioned as quasi dependend on gvfs:

The gvfs package needs to be installed, along with polkit-gnome for the polkit rules.

This seems to be wrong as neither gvfs nor the polkit rules do depend on polkit-gnome authentication-agent in any way.

Informations through the wiki(s) are very inconsistent!
From LXDE-Page:

polkit-gnome provides an authentication and will need to be started on login:
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart
$ cp /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop ~/.config/autostart

What is it good for? Is there any reason to start it twice? The file mentioned is installed at '/usr/share/applications/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop' by default.

Polkit-Page:

To autostart it everywhere except in GNOME and KDE, copy the file /usr/share/applications/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop to /etc/xdg/autostart/

LXDE-Wiki:

gvfs and its dependencies (optional, but highly recommended):
policykit-gnome (required for authentication for volume management)

And last but not least the awareness that the LX alternative exists since March 28th, 2010 where PCMan himself told us polkit-gnome is not needed anymore:
LXPOLKIT – SIMPLE POLICYKIT AUTHENTICATION AGENT:

Generally when one needs to use policykit, he or she needs to install policykit-gnome. Now we have our own.
A new component LXPolkit was added. It’s minimal policykit  authentication agent.

As far as I get it, polkit-gnome only provides the 'query of password window' and can be replaced by lxpolkit which is more lightweight.
And as it was never 'auto'started (see above) except in GNOME, the pacman.log message is IMHO highly questionable and confusing.

David Batson

Member

Registered: 2011-10-13

Posts: 640

Re: Confused about polkit-gnome and lxpolkit [solved]

I run XFCE.  I just installed lxpolkit and removed polkit-gnome.  Thunar still mounts all internal partitions without a problem.  Thunar still mounts USB key flashdrive without a problem.

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,259

Re: Confused about polkit-gnome and lxpolkit [solved]

I run XFCE.  I just installed lxpolkit and removed polkit-gnome.  Thunar still mounts all internal partitions without a problem.  Thunar still mounts USB key flashdrive without a problem.

lxpolkit does the same as gnome-polkit. It shows a password dialog when polkit asks for a password, nothing else. I still use polkit-gnome since lxpolkit doesn't display the action name like "com.something.pkexec.action" though.

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ttoirrah

Member

Registered: 2015-01-29

Posts: 58

Re: Confused about polkit-gnome and lxpolkit [solved]

David Batson, how do you autostart lxsession in Xfce4?