[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#842184: policykit-1: synaptic-pkexec no more work

[Sven C. Dack]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2016 12:11:20 +0200 KeyofBlueS <keyofblues at gmail.com> wrote:
 > I am on Xfce so yes, using policykit-1-gnome here. And again yes, after
 > running /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1 from
 > a terminal, authentication works fine.
 >
 > Good job!
 > Thanks
 >
 > 2016-10-27 11:00 GMT+02:00 Simon McVittie <smcv at debian.org>:
 >
 > > Control: reassign 842184 policykit-1-gnome 0.105-4
 > > Control: severity 842184 serious
 > >
 > > On Thu, 27 Oct 2016 at 07:27:05 +0000, Grand T wrote:
 > > > The error is in policykit-1-gnome 0.105-4
 > > >
 > > > /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop refer to
 > > >
 > > > Exec=/usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
 > > >
 > > > but it don't exist so it is not started !
 > > >
 > > > The exec is now at/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/polkit-gnome-authentication-
 > > agent-1
 > > >
 > > > I modified
 > > >
 > > > /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop to set up
 > > > Exec=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
 > >
 > > Good catch! It looks as though this was caused by modernizing the
 > > packaging of policykit-1-gnome from debhelper 8 to 10, which changed its
 > > ${libexecdir}, without also updating
 > > debian/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop to use the new
 > > value of ${libexecdir}.
 > >
 > > So this is not actually a policykit-1 bug, but rather policykit-1-gnome,
 > > which is a separate source package. Contrary to its name, pk-1-gnome
 > > is not actually used in "full" GNOME any more (because GNOME Shell has
 > > its own built-in polkit agent), but it does get used in XFCE, Unity and
 > > GNOME Flashback.
 > >
 > > Brian (and anyone else who is seeing #841878), are you using
 > > policykit-1-gnome as your implementation of a polkit agent? If you
 > > run /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
 > > "by hand" from a terminal, does authentication work normally for you?
 > >
 > > (If you have edited /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-
 > > gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop
 > > as a workaround, you will probably need to edit it again, or go back to
 > > the version provided by the package maintainer, after this bug is fixed -
 > > we will probably choose a different location for the authentication agent,
 > > or go back to its old location, because the architecture-dependent path is
 > > awkward to use in the packaging.)
 > >
 > > Thanks,
 > > S
 > >

Safest and easiest work-around is probably the following:

1. In Xfce4 open the menu "Settings" -> "Session and Startup" and select the tab 
"Application Autostart".
2. There scroll to "PolicyKit Authentication Agent" and disable it.
3. Add a new entry with the "+ Add" button with a name like "Polkit Work-Around" 
and the command "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1"
4. Click "Ok" and "Close".

So basically does one disable the default auto-start of the currently broken 
service and replaces it with a private service to start it manually, which can 
later be removed easily once it's been properly fixed.

Also note that not only synaptic seems to be affected, but gparted as well and 
also the gvfs samba plugin for the file manager for browsing Windows shares on 
the LAN needs this, too, and currently fails as well. There will likely be a few 
more.

Sven