ecryptfs requires a full logged in root user to work

[mhogo mchungu]

ecryptfs does not seem to work when root privileges are obtained through "su","pkexec" or sudo" and works when root privileges are obtained through "su -" suggesting it requires a login shell for some reason.

More info about the problem is discussed here: https://github.com/mhogomchungu/ecryptfs-simple/issues/2

[Jason Xing (wlxing)]

Hi,

I'm not sure what kind of problem you encountered.

I know that if I compile the utils source code and execute $ecryptfs-setup-private, it will go wrong because we do not set "s" bit on the /usr/sbin/mount.ecryptfs_private binary. I have to set that bit manually.

Is that what you want to say?

Jason

[mhogo mchungu (mhogomchungu)]

A test you can do to confirm what was reported.

1. Remove the suid bit in that binary.
2. Try to use the binary and things will fail as expected.
3. Try to elevate privileges first with su,sudo or pkexec and this will unexpectedly fail and the reported bug is here.
4. The only way i know of how to work around this is to elevate privileges through "su -c". This means in my application,i first raise privileges through pkexec[1] and then call "su -c"[2] while already elevated to work around the issue.

[1] https://github.com/mhogomchungu/sirikali/blob/b1a61a3194f0af546a8c069b359b4467d3baf343/src/siritask.cpp#L123

[2] https://github.com/mhogomchungu/sirikali/blob/b1a61a3194f0af546a8c069b359b4467d3baf343/src/siritask.cpp#L99

[mhogo mchungu (mhogomchungu)]

Correction in step 4 above,the "su" command should be "su - -c".