Beyond Linux® From Scratch - Version svn-20091118

Chapter 4. Security

polkit-0.94

Introduction to polkit

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

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-6.5 platform.

Package Information

polkit Dependencies

Required

D-Bus GObject Bindings-0.5, Linux-PAM-1.1.0, gobject-introspection-0.6.5, and DocBook XML DTD-4.5

Optional

expat-2.0.1 and GTK-Doc-1.11

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

Installation of polkit

It is a requirement to have a dedicated user and group for polkit to function correctly. Issue the following commands as the root user: 

groupadd -fg 27 polkituser &&
useradd -c "Policy Kit Daemon User" -d /dev/null -u 27 \
    -g polkituser -s /bin/false polkituser || [ $? == 9 ]

Install polkit by running the following commands as an unprivileged user: 

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc \
    --libexecdir=/usr/lib/polkit-1 --localstatedir=/var &&
make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Now, as the root user: 

make install

Command Explanations

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

Contents

Installed Programs: pkaction, pkcheck, pk-example-frobnicate, pkexec, polkit-agent-helper-1, and polkitd
Installed Libraries: libpolkit-agent-1.{so,a}, libpolkit-backend-1.{so,a}, libpolkit-gobject-1.{so,a}, libnullbackend.{so,a}, and libpkexec-action-lookup.{so,a}
Installed Directories: /etc/polkit-1/{localauthority.conf.d,nullbackend.conf.d}, /usr/{include/polkit-1/{polkit,polkitagent,polkitbackend}, lib/polkit-1/extensions,share/polkit-1/actions}, /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/{10-vendor.d,20-org.d,30-site.d, 50-local.d,90-mandatory.d}

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.

polkitd

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

libpolkit-agent-1.{so,a}

contains the polkit authentication agent API functions.

libpolkit-backend-1.{so,a}

contains the polkit backend API functions.

libpolkit-gobject-1.{so,a}

contains the polkit authorization API functions.

libnullbackend.{so,a}

is an extension library.

libpkexec-action-lookup.{so,a}

is an extension library.

Last updated on 2009-10-17 07:50:57 +0000