Synaptic launched from Krunner has no root privileges

[dotancohen]

In Kubuntu 10.04 RC when Synaptic is started from Krunner (Alt-F2) it does not ask for root privileges, it just gives an error message that it does not have them. In contrast, when started from Kmenu, Synaptic does ask for root privileges.

[Rickard Närström (riccetn)]

You will need to run "kdesudo synaptic".

[dotancohen (dotancohen)]

Thank you Rickard, I know how to start Synaptic with root privileges. However, Krunner is meant to be an application launcher, not a command line. Launching commands with Krunner is meant to be exactly as if one were clicking on Kmenu.

I appreciate you taking the time to convert the bug to a question, alas, the current behaviour is a programming oversight and therefore a bug.

[dotancohen (dotancohen)]

> The menu item includes kdesudo which is a tool to graphically
> ask the user for their administrative password.

This is incorrect, opening the KDE Menu Editor the command for running Synaptic is "synaptic". I trying tracing exactly where the kdesudo is being run, but could not find it. "which synaptic" points to /usr/sbin/synaptic which is binary so I don't know if the permissions-elevation dialogue is called from there.

> It would be a security issue if the system tried to grant itself
> administrative access and would very likely not even work.

The permissions-elevation dialogue should be called, just as is done from the Kmenu.

> If you want to run an application as root you will need to specify
> either su or sudo in some way before the command you want to run.

Obviously, but _something_ is calling the permissions-elevation dialogue when Synaptic is run from the Kmenu. What is calling it?