Arch Linux

Ypsy

Member

Registered: 2008-12-28

Posts: 15

[Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

Aloha,
I've searched Forums, Wikis and spammed IRC for a while now but it seems I can't get any real help.
So here's my problem: If I start any application in gnome that needs admin rights, the unlock button is grey (unclickable). The strange thing is, that if I, for example, start network-admin as a super user the button is still grey, which seems to only apply on me as most of the other ppl with this problem reported, that it would work just fine if they started it as su.
I've messed around with Policy Kit, what seems to be the cause of this problem, a while now but I can't change anything.

Any ideas how to solve this? :S
It's pretty annoying, because I normally use the network-manager a lot.

Last edited by Ypsy (2008-12-29 01:21:55)

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

Are you using GDM to start gnome-session?

Ypsy

Member

Registered: 2008-12-28

Posts: 15

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

Nope, I don't have a login-manager. Just auto starting via login on tty1.

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

This is the cause of the problem, since when you start the session like this the session is not registered correctly with consolekit, which then causes policykit to to be useless.

See this bug report: http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/12221

I'll also repost my comment from there which should be helpful in your situation:

OK -- I solved this one, at least on my machines. Here is what I did:

1) Add "session optional pam_ck_connector.so" to /etc/pam.d/login
2) Every session started from .xinitrc must have ck-launch-session pre-appended, like so:
exec ck-launch-session openbox-session
or exec ck-launch-session start-wmii.sh

When all this is done the permissions seem to work as they should.

I haven't tested this with gnome, but in principle it should work.

If you use GDM then the problem is automatically fixed.

Ypsy

Member

Registered: 2008-12-28

Posts: 15

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

That perfectly worked, thanks a lot fwojciec! Quick and easy

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

I'm glad I could help.  It might be useful (to others) to mark this thread as solved.

Liquen

Member

Registered: 2009-01-04

Posts: 40

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

I'm having the same problem. I'm using GDM. I added "session optional pam_ck_connector.so" to /etc/pam.d/login and still nothing. Any light?

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

It should all just work if you're using GDM -- are you sure it's the same issue?

Liquen

Member

Registered: 2009-01-04

Posts: 40

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

For example, I run users-admin (part of gnome-system-tools package) as a normal user (or even using gksu) and I get a grayed out "Unlock" button. Same for others tools like Services, Network, Time and Date, etc.

Also, I can't grant any authorizations using polkit-gnome-authorization, the button is also gray.

Maybe it's related: I can't restart (or shutdown) using System/Shut Down/Restart. Although the button to restart is there, nothing happens when I press it. But when I press ctrl-alt-backspace the system restarts.

Thanks for helping!

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

Is your system up to date?  Are you using [testing]?  Are hal and dbus daemons running? And could you post the output of "ck-list-sessions" command?

Liquen

Member

Registered: 2009-01-04

Posts: 40

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

Is your system up to date?

[root@liquen-laptop liquen]# pacman -Syu
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 archlinuxfr is up to date
 testing is up to date
 core is up to date
 extra is up to date
 community is up to date
:: Starting full system upgrade...
 local database is up to date

Are you using [testing]?

Yes, as shown above.

Are hal and dbus daemons running?

Yes, I think so. My DAEMONS line on /etc/rc.conf:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng !network dbus hal netfs crond !networkmanager \
         fam alsa gpm @wicd @cups @openntpd gdm)

And could you post the output of "ck-list-sessions" command?

There you are:

[root@liquen-laptop liquen]# ck-list-sessions
Session1:
    unix-user = '1000'
    realname = ''
    seat = 'Seat1'
    session-type = ''
    active = FALSE
    x11-display = ':0'
    x11-display-device = '/dev/tty7'
    display-device = ''
    remote-host-name = ''
    is-local = TRUE
    on-since = '2009-01-23T18:01:52.453091Z'
    login-session-id = ''

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

That's weird, everything appears to be fine, at least on the surface, except for the output of ck-list-sessions...
I'm not sure if I can help you, since my own configuration is different than yours and I don't used GDM/Gnome (I thought GDM was fixed to work with *kits but maybe not.)
See the bug report linked in one of the earlier posts, perhaps you'll find some hints there...

EDIT: I noticed that you're using root user for everything -- is that the user that runs X sessions, or do you have a non-root user defined for normal use?  I don't know, but it's possible that console kit only works correctly for regular users -- just a thought.

Last edited by fwojciec (2009-01-23 18:18:30)

Liquen

Member

Registered: 2009-01-04

Posts: 40

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

I'll take a look that link. Thanks again for helping!

EDIT: I got no problem mounting/unmounting fixed or removable drives in Gnome, that works fine. My PolicyKit.conf is

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- -*- XML -*- -->

<!DOCTYPE pkconfig PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD PolicyKit Configuration 1.0//EN"
"http://hal.freedesktop.org/releases/PolicyKit/1.0/config.dtd">

<!-- See the manual page PolicyKit.conf(5) for file format -->

<config version="0.1">

  <match user="liquen"> 

    <match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.*">
      <return result="yes"/>
    </match>

    <match action="org.freedesktop.hal.power-management.*">
      <return result="yes"/>
    </match>

    <match action="org.freedesktop.network-manager-settings.*">
      <return result="yes"/>
    </match>

    <match action="org.freedesktop.hal.consolekit.system.*">
      <return result="yes"/>
    </match>

  </match>

</config>

Last edited by Liquen (2009-01-23 18:48:18)

Liquen

Member

Registered: 2009-01-04

Posts: 40

Re: [Solved] PolKit: Can't unlock

fwojciec, thanks again for your help. Unfortunately, I'm not using Arch anymore. I need a working system and don't have enough time to configure it right now. Maybe I'll come back to Arch later, I learned a lot and had a lot of fun using it, but that's off-topic.

Answering your question (since user syms is having that same problem, see this thread): No, I had a normal non-root user. I just ran the commands above using root, but never used root to run X sessions.

EDIT: looks like syms found a fix to the problem; see link for his thread above.

Last edited by Liquen (2009-01-26 20:18:57)