Bug#1076728: elogind: privileged operation with polkit fails

[Andrew Bower]

Hi Tito,

Thanks for sharing your state! (And others for helpful replies - I'm
just answering this one for now.)

On Tue, Dec 17, 2024 at 02:43:36PM +0100, tito wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm on a sysvinit/elogind system too and have KDE and xfce4 installed.
> I use xfce4 as daily driver and everything works as expected.
> I have these polkit stuff installed:
> 
> apt list *polkit* | grep installed
> 
> gir1.2-polkit-1.0/stable,now 122-3devuan2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
> libpolkit-agent-1-0/stable,now 122-3devuan2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
> libpolkit-gobject-1-0/stable,now 122-3devuan2 all [installed]
> libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0/stable,now 122-3devuan2 amd64 [installed]
> libpolkit-qt5-1-1/stable,now 0.114.0-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
> polkit-kde-agent-1/stable,now 4:5.27.5-2 amd64 [installed]
> polkitd-pkla/stable,now 122-3devuan2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
> polkitd/stable,now 122-3devuan2 amd64 [installed,automatic]

I guess you are on stable - I and, presumably the OP, experience this
issue on unstable boxes (and notably not on a box that I upgraded from
stable).

> /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop

Thanks. I also have this, but notably it is NOT running. This fatal
'warning' appears in session logs and if invoked by hand:

(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:6713): polkit-gnome-1-WARNING **: 17:02:14.853: Unable to determine the session we are in: No session for pid 6713

> So I presume it is started early in the X startup process
> probably by the login manager itself (sddm in my case).

Note that the display manager (lightdm) also does not offer
shutdown options - so that too presumably failed to start an agent.

With the gnome agent deprecated clearly that is an issue in its own right!

I just substitued lxagent. That produces the same error but is actually
still running. Elevation is still not possible.

Thanks,

Andrew