lintian should not complain about gksu

[to be removed]

Binary package hint: lintian

Lintian version: 2.2.4

My package, computer-janitor-gtk, has a .desktop file that calls gksu. lintian complains:

W: computer-janitor-gtk: su-wrapper-not-su-to-root /usr/share/applications/computer-janitor-gtk.desktop gksu

It further provides the following explanation:
"The menu item or desktop file command uses an su wrapper other than
su-to-root. On Debian systems, please use su-to-root -X, which will pick
the correct wrapper based on what's installed on the system and the
current desktop environment. Using su-to-root is also important for Live
CD systems which need to use sudo rather than su. su-to-root permits
global configuration to use sudo."

Ubuntu does not contain su-to-root, and gksu seems to be the right way to invoke things as root in GNOME on Ubuntu. Lintian should not complain in this case.

I've added an override, but there are probably other packages in the same situation, so it would be good to to fix lintian, perhaps by disabling this test in the Ubuntu version of lintian.

[Russ Allbery (rra-debian)]

Lars Wirzenius <email address hidden> writes:

> My package, computer-janitor-gtk, has a .desktop file that calls gksu.
> lintian complains:
>
> W: computer-janitor-gtk: su-wrapper-not-su-to-root
> /usr/share/applications/computer-janitor-gtk.desktop gksu
>
> It further provides the following explanation:
> "The menu item or desktop file command uses an su wrapper other than
> su-to-root. On Debian systems, please use su-to-root -X, which will pick
> the correct wrapper based on what's installed on the system and the
> current desktop environment. Using su-to-root is also important for Live
> CD systems which need to use sudo rather than su. su-to-root permits
> global configuration to use sudo."
>
> Ubuntu does not contain su-to-root, and gksu seems to be the right way
> to invoke things as root in GNOME on Ubuntu. Lintian should not complain
> in this case.

I'm fairly sure that Ubuntu does contain su-to-root. It's in the menu
package. I'm also fairly sure that the point above about Live requiring a
way to override programs to use sudo still applies and gksu gets in the
way of doing that.

--
Russ Allbery (<email address hidden>) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

[to be removed (liw)]

Russ, you're right: su-to-root is in menu in Ubuntu. However, it doesn't seem to be installed by default, and I don't think it's appropriate to cause the whole menu package to be installed on Ubuntu GNOME desktops just because some package need su-to-root. Thus I stand by my earlier conclusion that Ubuntu's lintian should disable the warning about gksu.

[Russ Allbery (rra-debian)]

Lars Wirzenius <email address hidden> writes:

> Russ, you're right: su-to-root is in menu in Ubuntu. However, it doesn't
> seem to be installed by default, and I don't think it's appropriate to
> cause the whole menu package to be installed on Ubuntu GNOME desktops
> just because some package need su-to-root. Thus I stand by my earlier
> conclusion that Ubuntu's lintian should disable the warning about gksu.

I think the best solution to this problem would be to resolve:

    http://bugs.debian.org/492493
    http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.release/19273

by either convincing the menu maintainer and the debianutils maintainer
(who I think is already convinced) to move su-to-root into debianutils,
where it would always be available, or by doing what the menu maintainer
wanted and introducing an xdg-* utility into xdg-utils that does the same
thing. Allowing hard dependencies on gksu just reintroduces Bug#453931,
and I really don't believe it's the correct solution.

--
Russ Allbery (<email address hidden>) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

[to be removed (liw)]

Making su-to-root available always is a good solution. (A better one is to stop using any kind of su thing and switch to policykit instead). Until then, I still think it's inappropriate for lintian to complain. :)

[Russ Allbery (rra-debian)]

Lars Wirzenius <email address hidden> writes:

> Making su-to-root available always is a good solution. (A better one is
> to stop using any kind of su thing and switch to policykit instead).
> Until then, I still think it's inappropriate for lintian to complain. :)

Well, is the analysis in Bug#453931 incorrect? Is there something done on
Live CDs that lets this work? I see that Ubuntu actually patches menu to
make su-to-root always use sudo, which makes me think that Ubuntu has run
into exactly the same problem and is using the same solution as the Debian
Live team. Isn't any package that depends on gksu broken in a Live
environment?

--
Russ Allbery (<email address hidden>) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>