Recent threads about consolekit vs logind(systemd) have made me curious, so
I've been studying...
A few of us have had recent problems with things like plugging USB sticks,
which once worked transparently but now require root privileges.
I've discovered that my own such problems are caused by this:
$loginctl show-session 1 (I have only one session, cleverly named '1')
Id=1
Timestamp=Sun 2014-02-09 07:18:32 PST
TimestampMonotonic=389744251
VTNr=1
TTY=/dev/tty1
Remote=no
Service=login
Scope=session-1.scope
Leader=426
Audit=1
Type=tty
Class=user
Active=no <========================= should be 'yes'
State=online <======================= should be 'active'
Users of consolekit, don't feel neglected. You should try this instead:
$ck-list-sessions
Session1:
unix-user = '1001'
realname = '(null)'
seat = 'Seat2'
session-type = ''
active = FALSE (correct because I'm ssh'd into a remote box)
x11-display = ':0'
x11-display-device = '/dev/tty2'
display-device = '/dev/tty1'
remote-host-name = ''
is-local = FALSE
on-since = '2014-02-09T22:00:10.750312Z'
login-session-id = '1'
Canek explained that the reason my session is not 'active' is that I'm
not using a Display Manager (gdm kdm lightdm), which talks to logind or
consolekit and vouches for my physical presence at the local keyboard.
However, when I do the same thing on arch linux (as a virtualbox guest)
I see that my session (running gnome) is 'active' and I have no trouble
powering off the virtual machine as an unprivileged user.
Any ideas how I can fix it?
BTW, this helped me to understand some of the buzzwords I used above:
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/multiseat/
