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18

Is there a desktop-neutral gksudo?

rated 0 times [ 18] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 6135 / 1 Year ago, sat, february 4, 2023, 1:38:48

There are various tools for various desktops that aim to run a graphical application as root. gksudo, kdesudo, empower, etc...

But what if I'm writing a script that could be used on any Linux desktop? Is there an xdg-sudo of some sort..? A standard for getting sudo access in a desktop environment?

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answered 1 Year ago confiorc · Accepted Answer

Following @Tachyons suggestion, I researched a LOT about pkexec and it is awesome!

It is part of PolicyKit, a widely used package.

Hosted and sponsored by freedesktop.org

Default in Gnome, Unity, MATE, Cinnamon, KDE, LXDE and XFCE, and possibly others

Works via D-Bus, so it's completely desktop-neutral, with a well-defined protocol.

In many DEs it is used in several services like login screen, shutdown/restart, disk management (udisks/automount) and so on.

So yes, it meets all requirements, and I guess it's the closest thing an "universal gksudo" can be.

That said, pkexecis the command-line front-end to PolicyKit. There are 2 basic modes of operation:

Simply run it as you would with sudo, and you get a nice GUI prompt:

$ pkexec rm -rfX /

pkexec GUI prompt

Or create a PolicyKit authorization file for you application, drop it in /usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d, and it will allow a great deal of customization and security-related options, for example root access for certain actions only, no need of password for others, access limited to certain paths, etc. You can fine-tune your settings with amazing granularity.