Bug#842378: Xfce needs a policykit authentication agent
The virtual package, which is provided by all policykit authentication agents, is now "polkit-1-auth-agent": hb1@debian:~$ aptitude show polkit-1-auth-agent No candidate version found for polkit-1-auth-agent Package: polkit-1-auth-agent State: not a real package Provided by: gnome-flashback (3.22.0-3), gnome-shell (3.22.3-3), lxpolkit (0.5.3-2), lxqt-policykit (0.11.1-1), mate-polkit (1.16.0-2), policykit-1-gnome (0.105-6), polkit-kde-agent-1 (4:5.8.4-1) A new dependency for Thunar could then be: thunar recommends lxpolkit|polkit-1-auth-agent But since the XDG autostart file for lxpolkit is effectively disabled by adding "Hidden=true", thunar would have to provide an own autostart file. It could be defined as /etc/xdg/autostart/xfpolkit.desktop with the contents: [Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=LXPolKit for XFCE Comment=Policykit Authentication Agent Exec=lxpolkit TryExec=lxpolkit Icon=gtk-dialog-authentication OnlyShowIn=XFCE; Or, for the canonical solution, you could add the recommendation: thunar recommends policykit-1-gnome|polkit-1-auth-agent The file /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop is already configured for XFCE (but surprisingly not for GNOME): OnlyShowIn=XFCE;Unity;X-Cinnamon; I would add this dependency to Thunar, because the package thunar already recommends gvfs, and that uses policykit for authorization. -- Regards, Hartmut Buhrmester
Bug#842378: [Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#842378: Xfce needs a policykit authentication agent
On Sun, 2017-07-09 at 00:07 +0200, Hartmut Buhrmester wrote: > I'm sure, that in Debian 8 Jessie, somehow policykit-1-gnome would be > installed. Then at least one working authentication agent would be > available. But with its dependency on GTK3, it was not the best solution > for lightweight desktop environments. Considering Xfce is slowly beeing ported to GTK3, it doesn't really matter actually. Regards, -- Yves-Alexis signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Bug#842378: Xfce needs a policykit authentication agent
I think, in Debian 8 Jessie it worked like this: gvfs always depends on gvfs-daemons. gvfs-daemons recommends policykit-1-gnome, which was also a virtual package, provided by lxsession and mate-polkit. https://packages.debian.org/jessie/gvfs-daemons This dependency is lost in Debian 9 Stretch: https://packages.debian.org/stretch/gvfs-daemons But I don't think, that this recommendation should be restored. lxpolkit would be a much better solution for Xfce, if it could be launched automatically. Regards, Hartmut Buhrmester
Bug#842378: Xfce needs a policykit authentication agent
I also noticed, that I can mount external USB drives in Thunar, but I cannot mount partitions on the internal hard disk drive, which require root privileges. Then I get the same error message: "Authentication failed". The problem with Xfce and Thunar is, that they use gvfs and policykit, but they don't provide any policykit authentication agent. This agent is what displays the authorization dialog. It is usually left to the desktop environment to provide a policykit authentication agent, because it should match the user interface of the other applications: LXDE uses lxpolkit (GTK2) https://packages.debian.org/stretch/lxpolkit LXQt uses lxqt-policykit (Qt5) https://packages.debian.org/stretch/lxqt-policykit MATE uses mate-polkit (GTK3) https://packages.debian.org/stretch/mate-polkit GNOME uses policykit-1-gnome (GTK3) https://packages.debian.org/stretch/policykit-1-gnome Xfce just doesn't have any policykit authentication agent. I searched for it, but I didn't find any. Actually, lxpolkit works fine for Xfce, because it also uses GTK2 and is rather lightweight. It is not started automatically, because the file /etc/xdg/autostart/lxpolkit.desktop has the line "Hidden=true" in it. If it is launched manually, it will provide the authorization dialog for Thunar, and then I can mount any partitions, which requires root privileges. Any other policykit authentication agent will also work, because they all use the same dbus interface. So, to completely reveal this bug, you should do these steps: 1) Quit any other policykit agent, which may be running 2) Try to mount a partition in Thunar, which requires root privileges. This should fail at this point. 3) Launch lxpolkit 4) Try again to mount the partition. lxpolkit shows the dialog to enter the root password. I'm sure, that in Debian 8 Jessie, somehow policykit-1-gnome would be installed. Then at least one working authentication agent would be available. But with its dependency on GTK3, it was not the best solution for lightweight desktop environments. Regards, Hartmut Buhrmester
