/dev/chat

2:50 PM

Hi. Would it make sense to have the Debian udiskie package contain a polkit file such as the one described in github.com/coldfix/udiskie/wiki/Permissions?

Faheem Mitha

3:10 PM

The storage group does not exist. Should I use another group?

I'm wondering whether I could/should use the backup group for this.

derobert

8:54 PM

@FaheemMitha what are you talking about?

Faheem Mitha

9:13 PM

@derobert Sorry, I guess I'm not being clear.

See unix.stackexchange.com/q/277606/4671

derobert

polkit shudder

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Is it part of the unholy Church of the Systemd?

derobert

@FaheemMitha no, worse, I think it's in bed with GNOME.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Oh the horror.

derobert

though everyone uses it now

Faheem Mitha

9:22 PM

@derobert The udiskie maintainer kindly gave me a pointer.

Do you happen to know the correct way to restart polkit? I've been trying systemctl restart polkitd.service, but it doesn't give any signs that anything has happened.

derobert

@FaheemMitha that should do it... not sure you even need to...

Faheem Mitha

He pointed me to github.com/coldfix/udiskie/wiki/Debugging-a-problem#polkit

Is this just me, or is trying to stop people mounting and unmounting devices in cron symtoms of a misplaced sense of security?

Another trivial question. If I do set -e bash echoes everything. But it is echoing to standard output?

derobert

@FaheemMitha well, polkit is tied to sessions, and cron isn't part of your session... it's idea is that the person physically seated at the machine should be allowed to do certain things

Faheem Mitha

@derobert It just makes life more complicated. I mean, I'm all for security, but one should draw the line somewhere. I'm just trying to get this freaking backup working.

I may have to move to Windows. Or OS X.

derobert

@FaheemMitha making life more complicated is what polkit does... :-/

hence the shudder

Faheem Mitha

9:32 PM

@derobert If I wanted complicated, I'd use SELinux.

derobert

@FaheemMitha make life simple! fvwm95 4ever!

:-p

Faheem Mitha

@derobert The window manager?

That tip doesn't seem to be working. I'm getting nothing in the logs...

To be clear, I'm talking about github.com/coldfix/udiskie/wiki/Debugging-a-problem#polkit

derobert

I don't think you can use the javascript polkit syntax... Debian doesn't use a new enough version in Jessie, if I remember correctly.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Which part is in JS polkit syntax? All of it?

derobert

polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
  var prefix = "org.freedesktop.udisks";
  if (action.id.slice(0, prefix.length) == prefix)
    polkit.log(action.id);
});

... that is JavaScript

Faheem Mitha

9:39 PM

python3 points to python2.7.6, Ah, newbies.

@derobert I see. Shouldn't it throw an error or something?

derobert

I don't know. I try to stay as far away from polkit as possible. For safety.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert I'd like to do that. But do I have the option?

derobert

@FaheemMitha yeah, just do your mount with sudo :-P

Faheem Mitha

Maybe I should try taking a stern tone with my computer. I shall tell it I shall brook none of this nonsense.

@derobert Not sure what you mean.

derobert

@FaheemMitha dpkg --purge --force-depends policykit-1 seldom goes well, unfortunately.

Faheem Mitha

9:43 PM

@derobert I believe you.

derobert

@FaheemMitha sudo mount /dev/whatever /path works just fine from cron. At least if you set it up as NOPASSWD in sudoers.

Faheem Mitha

I notice I'm not getting any comments or answers. And hardly any views. <sobs>

derobert

sudo udisksctl ... will too, as root will have permission

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Oh, you mean tell udisks to take a running jump?

derobert

... if you just want to get it to work... :-/

Faheem Mitha

9:45 PM

In other words, just do it manually?

@derobert Yes, it's good when things work.

I'm generally pro things working.

derobert

github.com/derobert/Westerley-Pool/blob/master/integration/… .... that's all I know about getting udisks2 to let a user mount disks...

Faheem Mitha

But I don't need to run sudo to get it to mount. Just allow mounting by users.

That would be your apartment complex pool app thingy?

derobert

yep. the web app (running as its own user) mounts disks to do backups to them

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Ah, so you are actually doing things with policykit. How brave of you.

derobert

yes, and it actually works...

Faheem Mitha

9:48 PM

If pkit doesn't recognize JS, that could explain the issue. But why accept JS syntax in the first place?

That is some old syntax?

derobert

JS syntax is the new syntax. Jessie doesn't do it,

I have no idea why they picked JS.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Maybe they are worshippers of Satan.

I'll tell Thomas G.

Gosh, this is so much fun.

derobert

Yeah! Upgrading Wheezy→Jessie, I get to reconfigure Apache! Joy!

Faheem Mitha

Is the code in github.com/coldfix/udiskie/wiki/Permissions also in JS syntax?

derobert

@FaheemMitha top one is, bottom isn't

Faheem Mitha

9:53 PM

@derobert Actually, I think I started using udiskie because there was some problem mounting NTFS filesystems on jessie.

I never did quite figure it out... But udisks seems to be able to cope, regular mounting doesn't.

@derobert They look pretty similar.

derobert

@FaheemMitha I hope that's sarcastic .... :-/

Faheem Mitha

To be clear github.com/coldfix/udiskie/wiki/Permissions is not in JS syntax, right?

derobert

polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) { is the JS one

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Definitely not sarcastic. I have no idea what JS looks like.

derobert

ah...

Faheem Mitha

9:56 PM

github.com/coldfix/udiskie/wiki/Permissions has the same syntax.

I.e. it starts with:

polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {

derobert

polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) { … }) is a JS function call, passing it an anonymous (lambda) function...

@FaheemMitha yep, it has the older syntax at the bottom of the page though.

Faheem Mitha

It talks about "polkit's predecessor PolicyKit"

So is jessie running PolicyKit?

derobert

yep

or at least close enough

Faheem Mitha

Package: policykit-1
Version: 0.105-8
Installed-Size: 149
Maintainer: Utopia Maintenance Team <pkg-utopia-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Architecture: amd64
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.37.3), libpam0g (>= 0.99.7.1), libpolkit-agent-1-0 (>= 0.105), libpolkit-backend-1-0 (>= 0.99), libpolkit-gobject-1-0 (>= 0.101), libpam-systemd, dbus
Breaks: gdm3 (<< 3.8.4-7~)
Description-en: framework for managing administrative policies and privileges
PolicyKit is an application-level toolkit for defining and handling the policy

But they seems to be using PolicyKit and polkit interchangably here. My head may explode.

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/29128215#29128215 <- This was sarcasm.

derobert

@FaheemMitha As long as you're still up to no good, it's all OK :-P

Faheem Mitha

10:02 PM

@derobert Yes, that's what I'm up to.

@derobert github.com/coldfix/udiskie/issues/102#issuecomment-212146487

Hmm, do I know how to "inset the correct action names"?

Yes, it actually doesn't look that complicated.

derobert

@FaheemMitha ummmm.... I believe there is a udisks2 file somewhere describing what action names it uses..

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Incidentally, are you a Frasier fan?

derobert

Never watched it

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Ah.

I have a theory that it actually takes place in a different universe.

You notice they never show the sky? That universe probably has two moons.

derobert

10:18 PM

I think it's time to go home. Apache can remain broken until tomorrow.

Faheem Mitha

10:31 PM

@derobert Have a good evening. Thanks for the help.

Gilles

11:31 PM

@JeffSchaller (You were the one who thought I considered too many programming questions off-topic, right?) I'm not voting to migrate this question because it's about finding documentation, not about programming per se.

It is a borderline case, I don't really mind if it does get migrated.

Jeff Schaller

11:53 PM

@Gilles It's possible that I thought so; I don't trust my memory much, unless it's written down somewhere besides my neurons. A random program snippet could define a constant anywhere internally, if not in 30 levels of #includes. I didn't like the question because it showed lack of effort, but put the comment there in the hopes that it would be enough to show them a path for future curiosities. I think a programmer's forum might have better tools for a more-general solution.

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