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POLKIT(8)                           polkit                           POLKIT(8)

NAME
       polkit - Authorization Manager
OVERVIEW
       polkit provides an authorization API intended to be used by privileged
       programs ("MECHANISMS") offering service to unprivileged programs
       ("SUBJECTS") often through some form of inter-process communication
       mechanism. In this scenario, the mechanism typically treats the subject
       as untrusted. For every request from a subject, the mechanism needs to
       determine if the request is authorized or if it should refuse to
       service the subject. Using the polkit APIs, a mechanism can offload
       this decision to a trusted party: The polkit authority.
       The polkit authority is implemented as an system daemon, polkitd(8),
       which itself has little privilege as it is running as the polkitd
       system user. Mechanisms, subjects and authentication agents communicate
       with the authority using the system message bus.
       In addition to acting as an authority, polkit allows users to obtain
       temporary authorization through authenticating either an administrative
       user or the owner of the session the client belongs to. This is useful
       for scenarios where a mechanism needs to verify that the operator of
       the system really is the user or really is an administrative user.
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
       The system architecture of polkit is comprised of the Authority
       (implemented as a service on the system message bus) and an
       Authentication Agent per user session (provided and started by the
       user's graphical environment).  Actions are defined by applications.
       Vendors, sites and system administrators can control authorization
       policy through Authorization Rules.
           [IMAGE][1]
                +-------------------+
                |   Authentication  |
                |       Agent       |
                +-------------------+
                | libpolkit-agent-1 |
                +-------------------+
                       ^                                  +---------+
                       |                                  | Subject |
                       +--------------+                   +---------+
                                      |                        ^
                                      |                        |
               User Session           |                        |
               =======================|========================|=============
               System Context         |                        |
                                      |                        |
                                      |                    +---+
                                      V                    |
                                    /------------\         |
                                    | System Bus |         |
                                    \------------/         |
                                      ^        ^           V
                                      |        |      +---------------------+
                       +--------------+        |      |      Mechanism      |
                       |                       |      +---------------------+
                       V                       +----> | libpolkit-gobject-1 |
               +------------------+                   +---------------------+
               |    polkitd(8)    |
               +------------------+
               | org.freedesktop. |
               |    PolicyKit1    |<---------+
               +------------------+          |
                         ^                   |
                         |            +--------------------------------------+
                         |            | /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/*.policy |
                         |            +--------------------------------------+
                         |
                  +--------------------------------------+
                  | /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/*.rules        |
                  | /usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d/*.rules  |
                  +--------------------------------------+
       For convenience, the libpolkit-gobject-1 library wraps the polkit D-Bus
       API and is usable from any C/C++ program as well as higher-level
       languages supporting GObjectIntrospection[2] such as Javascript and
       Python. A mechanism can also use the D-Bus API or the pkcheck(1)
       command to check authorizations. The libpolkit-agent-1 library provides
       an abstraction of the native authentication system, e.g.  pam(8) and
       also facilities registration and communication with the polkit D-Bus
       service.
       See the developer documentation[3] for more information about writing
       polkit applications.
AUTHENTICATION AGENTS
       An authentication agent is used to make the user of a session prove
       that the user of the session really is the user (by authenticating as
       the user) or an administrative user (by authenticating as a
       administrator). In order to integrate well with the rest of the user
       session (e.g. match the look and feel), authentication agents are meant
       to be provided by the user session that the user uses. For example, an
       authentication agent may look like this:
           [IMAGE][4]
               +----------------------------------------------------------+
               |                                                          |
               |  [Icon]  Authentication required                         |
               |                                                          |
               |          Authentication is required to format INTEL      |
               |          SSDSA2MH080G1GC (/dev/sda)                      |
               |                                                          |
               |          Administrator                                   |
               |                                                          |
               |          Password: [__________________________________]  |
               |                                                          |
               | [Cancel]                                  [Authenticate] |
               +----------------------------------------------------------+
       If the system is configured without a root account it may prompt for a
       specific user designated as the administrative user:
           [IMAGE][5]
               +----------------------------------------------------------+
               |                                                          |
               |  [Icon]  Authentication required                         |
               |                                                          |
               |          Authentication is required to format INTEL      |
               |          SSDSA2MH080G1GC (/dev/sda)                      |
               |                                                          |
               |          [Icon] David Zeuthen                            |
               |                                                          |
               |          Password: [__________________________________]  |
               |                                                          |
               | [Cancel]                                  [Authenticate] |
               +----------------------------------------------------------+
       Applications that do not run under a desktop environment (for example,
       if launched from a ssh(1) login) may not have have an authentication
       agent associated with them. Such applications may use the
       PolkitAgentTextListener type or the pkttyagent(1) helper so the user
       can authenticate using a textual interface.
DECLARING ACTIONS
       A mechanism need to declare a set of actions in order to use polkit.
       Actions correspond to operations that clients can request the mechanism
       to carry out and are defined in XML files that the mechanism installs
       into the /usr/share/polkit-1/actions directory.
       polkit actions are namespaced and can only contain the characters
       [A-Z][a-z][0-9].- e.g. ASCII, digits, period and hyphen. Each XML file
       can contain more than one action but all actions need to be in the same
       namespace and the file needs to be named after the namespace and have
       the extension .policy.
       The XML file must have the following doctype declaration
           <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
           <!DOCTYPE policyconfig PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD polkit Policy Configuration 1.0//EN"
           "http://www.freedesktop.org/software/polkit/policyconfig-1.dtd">
       The policyconfig element must be present exactly once. Elements that
       can be used inside policyconfig includes:
       vendor
           The name of the project or vendor that is supplying the actions in
           the XML document. Optional.
       vendor_url
           A URL to the project or vendor that is supplying the actions in the
           XML document. Optional.
       icon_name
           An icon representing the project or vendor that is supplying the
           actions in the XML document. The icon name must adhere to the
           Freedesktop.org Icon Naming Specification[6]. Optional.
       action
           Declares an action. The action name is specified using the id
           attribute and can only contain the characters [A-Z][a-z][0-9].-
           e.g. ASCII, digits, period and hyphen.
       Elements that can be used inside action include:
       description
           A human readable description of the action, e.g.  "Install unsigned
           software".
       message
           A human readable message displayed to the user when asking for
           credentials when authentication is needed, e.g.  "Installing
           unsigned software requires authentication".
       defaults
           This element is used to specify implicit authorizations for
           clients. Elements that can be used inside defaults include:
           allow_any
               Implicit authorizations that apply to any client. Optional.
           allow_inactive
               Implicit authorizations that apply to clients in inactive
               sessions on local consoles. Optional.
           allow_active
               Implicit authorizations that apply to clients in active
               sessions on local consoles. Optional.
           Each of the allow_any, allow_inactive and allow_active elements can
           contain the following values:
           no
               Not authorized.
           yes
               Authorized.
           auth_self
               Authentication by the owner of the session that the client
               originates from is required. Note that this is not restrictive
               enough for most uses on multi-user systems; auth_admin* is
               generally recommended.
           auth_admin
               Authentication by an administrative user is required.
           auth_self_keep
               Like auth_self but the authorization is kept for a brief period
               (e.g. five minutes). The warning about auth_self above applies
               likewise.
           auth_admin_keep
               Like auth_admin but the authorization is kept for a brief
               period (e.g. five minutes).
       annotate
           Used for annotating an action with a key/value pair. The key is
           specified using the the key attribute and the value is specified
           using the value attribute. This element may appear zero or more
           times. See below for known annotations.
       vendor
           Used for overriding the vendor on a per-action basis. Optional.
       vendor_url
           Used for overriding the vendor URL on a per-action basis. Optional.
       icon_name
           Used for overriding the icon name on a per-action basis. Optional.
       For localization, description and message elements may occur multiple
       times with different xml:lang attributes.
       To list installed polkit actions, use the pkaction(1) command.
   Known annotations
       The org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.path annotation is used by the
       pkexec program shipped with polkit - see the pkexec(1) man page for
       details.
       The org.freedesktop.policykit.imply annotation (its value is a string
       containing a space separated list of action identifiers) can be used to
       define meta actions. The way it works is that if a subject is
       authorized for an action with this annotation, then it is also
       authorized for any action specified by the annotation. A typical use of
       this annotation is when defining an UI shell with a single lock button
       that should unlock multiple actions from distinct mechanisms.
       The org.freedesktop.policykit.owner annotation can be used to define a
       set of users who can query whether a client is authorized to perform
       this action. If this annotation is not specified then only root can
       query whether a client running as a different user is authorized for an
       action. The value of this annotation is a string containing a space
       separated list of PolkitIdentity entries, for example "unix-user:42
       unix-user:colord". A typical use of this annotation is for a daemon
       process that runs as a system user rather than root.
AUTHORIZATION RULES
       polkitd reads .rules files from the /etc/polkit-1/rules.d and
       /usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d directories by sorting the files in lexical
       order based on the basename on each file (if there's a tie, files in
       /etc are processed before files in /usr). For example, for the
       following four files, the order is
       o   /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/10-auth.rules
       o   /usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d/10-auth.rules
       o   /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/15-auth.rules
       o   /usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d/20-auth.rules
       Both directories are monitored so if a rules file is changed, added or
       removed, existing rules are purged and all files are read and processed
       again. Rules files are written in the JavaScript[7] programming
       language and interface with polkitd through the global polkit object
       (of type Polkit).
       While the JavaScript interpreter used in particular versions of polkit
       may support non-standard features (such as the let keyword),
       authorization rules must conform to ECMA-262 edition 5[8] (in other
       words, the JavaScript interpreter used may change in future versions of
       polkit).
       Authorization rules are intended for two specific audiences
       o   System Administrators
       o   Special-purpose Operating Systems / Environments
       and those audiences only. In particular, applications, mechanisms and
       general-purpose operating systems must never include any authorization
       rules.
   The Polkit type
       The following methods are available on the polkit object:
       void addRule(polkit.Result function(action, subject) {...});
       void addAdminRule(string[] function(action, subject) {...});
       void log(string message);
       string spawn(string[] argv);
       The addRule() method is used for adding a function that may be called
       whenever an authorization check for action and subject is performed.
       Functions are called in the order they have been added until one of the
       functions returns a value. Hence, to add an authorization rule that is
       processed before other rules, put it in a file in /etc/polkit-1/rules.d
       with a name that sorts before other rules files, for example
       00-early-checks.rules. Each function should return a value from
       polkit.Result
           polkit.Result = {
               NO              : "no",
               YES             : "yes",
               AUTH_SELF       : "auth_self",
               AUTH_SELF_KEEP  : "auth_self_keep",
               AUTH_ADMIN      : "auth_admin",
               AUTH_ADMIN_KEEP : "auth_admin_keep",
               NOT_HANDLED     : null
           };
       corresponding to the values that can be used as defaults. If the
       function returns polkit.Result.NOT_HANDLED, null, undefined or does not
       return a value at all, the next user function is tried.
       Keep in mind that if polkit.Result.AUTH_SELF_KEEP or
       polkit.Result.AUTH_ADMIN_KEEP is returned, authorization checks for the
       same action identifier and subject will succeed (that is, return
       polkit.Result.YES) for the next brief period (e.g. five minutes) even
       if the variables passed along with the check are different. Therefore,
       if the result of an authorization rule depend on such variables, it
       should not use the "*_KEEP" constants (if similar functionality is
       required, the authorization rule can easily implement temporary
       authorizations using the Date[9] type for timestamps).
       The addAdminRule() method is used for adding a function may be called
       whenever administrator authentication is required. The function is used
       to specify what identies may be used for administrator authentication
       for the authorization check identified by action and subject. Functions
       added are called in the order they have been added until one of the
       functions returns a value. Each function should return an array of
       strings where each string is of the form "unix-group:<group>",
       "unix-netgroup:<netgroup>" or "unix-user:<user>". If the function
       returns null, undefined or does not return a value at all, the next
       function is tried.
       There is no guarantee that a function registered with addRule() or
       addAdminRule() is ever called - for example an early rules file could
       register a function that always return a value, hence ensuring that
       functions added later are never called.
       If user-provided code takes a long time to execute an exception will be
       thrown which normally results in the function being terminated (the
       current limit is 15 seconds). This is used to catch runaway scripts.
       The spawn() method spawns an external helper identified by the argument
       vector argv and waits for it to terminate. If an error occurs or the
       helper doesn't exit normally with exit code 0, an exception is thrown.
       If the helper does not exit within 10 seconds it is killed. Otherwise,
       the program's standard output is returned as a string. The spawn()
       method should be used sparingly as helpers may take a very long or
       indeterminate amount of time to complete and no other authorization
       check can be handled while the helper is running. Note that the spawned
       programs will run as the unprivileged polkitd system user.
       The log() method writes the given message to the system logger prefixed
       with the JavaScript filename and line number. Log entries are emitted
       using the LOG_AUTHPRIV flag meaning that the log entries usually ends
       up in the file /var/log/secure. The log() method is usually only used
       when debugging rules. The Action and Subject types has suitable
       toString() methods defined for easy logging, for example,
           polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
               if (action.id == "org.freedesktop.policykit.exec") {
                   polkit.log("action=" + action);
                   polkit.log("subject=" + subject);
               }
           });
       will produce the following when the user runs 'pkexec -u bateman bash
       -i' from a shell:
           May 24 14:28:50 thinkpad polkitd[32217]: /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/10-test.rules:3: action=[Action id='org.freedesktop.policykit.exec' command_line='/usr/bin/bash -i' program='/usr/bin/bash' user='bateman' user.gecos='Patrick Bateman' user.display='Patrick Bateman (bateman)']
           May 24 14:28:50 thinkpad polkitd[32217]: /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/10-test.rules:4: subject=[Subject pid=1352 user='davidz' groups=davidz,wheel, seat='seat0' session='1' local=true active=true]
   The Action type
       The action parameter passed to user functions is an object with
       information about the action being checked. It is of type Action and
       has the following attribute:
       string id
           The action identifier, for example org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.
       The following methods are available on the Action type:
       string lookup(string key);
       The lookup() method is used to lookup the polkit variables passed from
       the mechanism. For example, the pkexec(1) mechanism sets the variable
       program which can be obtained in Javascript using the expression
       action.lookup("program"). If there is no value for the given key, then
       undefined is returned.
       Consult the documentation for each mechanism for what variables are
       available for each action.
   The Subject type
       The subject parameter passed to user functions is an object with
       information about the process being checked. It is of type Subject and
       has the following attributes
       int pid
           The process id.
       string user
           The user name.
       string[] groups
           Array of groups that user user belongs to.
       string seat
           The seat that the subject is associated with - blank if not on a
           local seat.
       string session
           The session that the subject is associated with.
       boolean local
           Set to true only if seat is local.
       boolean active
           Set to true only if the session is active.
       The following methods are available on the Subject type:
       boolean isInGroup(string groupName);
       boolean isInNetGroup(string netGroupName);
       The isInGroup() method can be used to check if the subject is in a
       given group and isInNetGroup() can be used to check if the subject is
       in a given netgroup.
   Authorization Rules Examples
       Allow all users in the admin group to perform user administration
       without changing policy for other users:
           polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
               if (action.id == "org.freedesktop.accounts.user-administration" &&
                   subject.isInGroup("admin")) {
                   return polkit.Result.YES;
               }
           });
       Define administrative users to be the users in the wheel group:
           polkit.addAdminRule(function(action, subject) {
               return ["unix-group:wheel"];
           });
       Forbid users in group children to change hostname configuration (that
       is, any action with an identifier starting with
       org.freedesktop.hostname1.) and allow anyone else to do it after
       authenticating as themselves:
           polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
               if (action.id.indexOf("org.freedesktop.hostname1.") == 0) {
                   if (subject.isInGroup("children")) {
                       return polkit.Result.NO;
                   } else {
                       return polkit.Result.AUTH_SELF_KEEP;
                   }
               }
           });
       Run an external helper to determine if the current user may reboot the
       system:
           polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
               if (action.id.indexOf("org.freedesktop.login1.reboot") == 0) {
                   try {
                       // user-may-reboot exits with succeess (exit code 0)
                       // only if the passed username is authorized
                       polkit.spawn(["/opt/company/bin/user-may-reboot",
                                     subject.user]);
                       return polkit.Result.YES;
                   } catch (error) {
                       // Nope, but do allow admin authentication
                       return polkit.Result.AUTH_ADMIN;
                   }
               }
           });
       The following example shows how the authorization decision can depend
       on variables passed by the pkexec(1) mechanism:
           polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
               if (action.id == "org.freedesktop.policykit.exec" &&
                   action.lookup("program") == "/usr/bin/cat") {
                   return polkit.Result.AUTH_ADMIN;
               }
           });
       The following example shows another use of variables passed from the
       mechanism. In this case, the mechanism is UDisks[10] which defines a
       set of actions and variables[11] that is used to match on:
           // Allow users in group 'engineers' to perform any operation on
           // some drives without having to authenticate
           //
           polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
               if (action.id.indexOf("org.freedesktop.udisks2.") == 0 &&
                   action.lookup("drive.vendor") == "SEAGATE" &&
                   action.lookup("drive.model") == "ST3300657SS" &&
                   subject.isInGroup("engineers")) {
                       return polkit.Result.YES;
                   }
               }
           });
AUTHOR
       Written by David Zeuthen <davidz AT redhat.com> with a lot of help from
       many others.
BUGS
       Please send bug reports to either the distribution or the polkit-devel
       mailing list, see the link
       http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/polkit-devel on how to
       subscribe.
SEE ALSO
       polkitd(8), pkaction(1), pkcheck(1), pkexec(1), pkttyagent(1)
NOTES
        1. /usr/share/gtk-doc/html/polkit-1/polkit-architecture.png
        2. GObjectIntrospection
           https://live.gnome.org/GObjectIntrospection
        3. developer documentation
           http://www.freedesktop.org/software/polkit/docs/latest/
        4. /usr/share/gtk-doc/html/polkit-1/polkit-authentication-agent-
           example.png
        5. /usr/share/gtk-doc/html/polkit-1/polkit-authentication-agent-
           example-wheel.png
        6. Freedesktop.org Icon Naming Specification
           http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html
        7. JavaScript
           http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
        8. ECMA-262 edition 5
           http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript#ECMAScript.2C_5th_Edition
        9. Date
           https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date
       10. UDisks
           http://udisks.freedesktop.org/docs/latest/udisks.8.html
       11. actions and variables
           http://udisks.freedesktop.org/docs/latest/udisks-polkit-actions.html

polkit                           January 2009                        POLKIT(8)