pkexec cannot run graphical applications when using KDM as display manager

Bug #997506 reported by Daniel Richter
26
This bug affects 5 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
policykit-1 (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

After reporting this bug for policykit (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49707) and then doing the same for KDM (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=299718) the problem the problem seems to be distribution specific.

In short:

 * I created a policykit action containing org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.allow_gui
 * when trying to run this application it works well when using GDM as display manager but KDM puts this message:

No protocol specified
No protocol specified

(grub-customizer:2002): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0

 * the KDM developers was telling me that this is a configuration issue (I've tried on a frash installed Kubuntu) and I just have to add "session optional pam_xauth.so" to /etc/pam.d/{sudo,su}. Finally I added this line to /etc/pam.d/comman_auth and everything worked well.

Please add this option by default. Otherwise pkexec is broken on allmost all Kubuntu installations and cannot run applications like synaptic without doing tricks like "X-KDE-SubstituteUID=true" on the .desktop file.

Tags: bot-comment
Revision history for this message
Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/997506/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

tags: added: bot-comment
Conor Bouley (jconb22)
affects: ubuntu → kde-workspace (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
Paul Abrahams (abrahams) wrote :

This is a nasty bug that affects many users. Its solution should not be buried.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in kde-workspace (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Harald Sitter (apachelogger) wrote :

Turns out /etc/pam.d/policykit-1 needs that line.

affects: kde-workspace (Ubuntu) → policykit-1 (Ubuntu)
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