Beyond Linux® From Scratch - Version 2012-05-20

Chapter 4. Security

polkit-0.105

Introduction to polkit

The polkit package is an application-level toolkit for defining and handling the policy that allows unprivileged users to speak to privileged processes.

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-7.1 platform.

Package Information

polkit Dependencies

Required

intltool-0.50.0 and pkg-config-0.26

Optional (Required if building GNOME)

gobject-introspection-1.32.1

Optional

docbook-xml-4.5, docbook-xsl-1.76.1, GTK-Doc-1.18, libxslt-1.1.26 and Linux-PAM-1.1.5

[Note]

Note

If libxslt-1.1.26 is installed then docbook-xml-4.5 and docbook-xsl-1.76.1 are required.

User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/polkit

Installation of polkit

Install polkit by running the following commands: 

./configure --prefix=/usr \
            --sysconfdir=/etc \
            --localstatedir=/var \
            --libexecdir=/usr/lib/polkit-1 \
            --with-authfw=shadow \
            --disable-static &&
make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Now, as the root user: 

make install

Command Explanations

--with-authfw=shadow: This parameter will use the Shadow rather than the Linux-PAM Authentication framework. Remove it if you would like to use Linux-PAM.

--disable-static: This switch prevents installation of static versions of the libraries.

--enable-gtk-doc: Use this parameter if GTK-Doc is installed and you wish to rebuild and install the API documentation.

Configuring polkit

Config Files

/etc/polkit-1/localauthority.conf.d/*

PAM Configuration

[Note]

Note

If you did not build polkit with Linux PAM support, you can skip this section.

If you have built polkit with Linux PAM support, you need to modify default PAM configuration file which was installed by default to get polkit to work correctly with BLFS.

Issue the following commands as the root user to create the configuration file for Linux PAM: 

cat > /etc/pam.d/polkit-1 << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/pam.d/polkit-1

auth     include        system-auth
account  include        system-account
password include        system-password
session  include        system-session

# End /etc/pam.d/polkit-1
EOF

Contents

Installed Programs: pk-example-frobnicate, pkaction, pkcheck, pkexec, pkttyagent and polkitd
Installed Libraries: libpolkit-agent-1.so, libpolkit-backend-1.so and libpolkit-gobject-1.so
Installed Directories: /etc/polkit-1, /usr/include/polkit-1, /usr/lib/polkit-1, /usr/share/polkit-1 and /var/lib/polkit-1

Short Descriptions

pkaction

is used to obtain information about registered PolicyKit actions.

pkcheck

is used to check whether a process is authorized for action.

pkexec

allows an authorized user to execute a command as another user.

pkttyagent

is used to start a textual authentication agent for the subject.

polkitd

provides the org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1 D-Bus service on the system message bus.

libpolkit-agent-1.so

contains the polkit authentication agent API functions.

libpolkit-backend-1.so

contains the polkit backend API functions.

libpolkit-gobject-1.so

contains the polkit authorization API functions.

Last updated on 2012-05-24 02:48:38 +0000