Re: "not authorised" doing various desktoppy things
On Tue, 03 Jan 2017 at 21:59:05 +0000, Sune Vuorela wrote:
> If I recall correctly, for most
> networky (and removable media things), the default policykit
> configuration is that 'local logged in users' are allowed to do this.
They must usually be active as well as locally logged in. (This means that
if alice is on tty7, bob is on tty8, and tty7 is the visible one, then
most polkit-mediated actions will not be available to bob, which is usually
the right thing when using Ctrl+Alt+F? or many desktop environments'
"fast user switching" features.)
systemd-logind also gives active local users permission to do things with
some device nodes (specifically the ones tagged "uaccess" in udev rules)
directly, by setting POSIX ACLs on those device nodes, which are removed
when switching VT. For many device types this can't revoke access to an
already-opened device, but for some device types (input and sound, I
think?) it's possible to revoke access. You can configure that by writing
udev rules to (un)tag selected devices with "uaccess", or force the issue
by writing udev rules to set the owner or group of selected device nodes
to the one that you want to be privileged.
None of this works unless you have libpam-systemd installed and enabled.
That PAM module is somewhat mis-named: it's really for systemd-logind,
the user/login manager, and not the systemd init/service manager.
A (strong or weak) dependency relationship with libpam-systemd is
considered to be the correct way for a Debian package to declare that
it requires (or benefits from) a working systemd-logind, either via
the systemd init/service manager or systemd-shim with some other init.
> There is also somewhere iirc a configuration bit to require a password
> on the way.
Upstream defaults (along with descriptions and other metadata)
go in /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/*.policy. For example, udisks2 installs
a polkit policy file to describe the actions users can take when
asking udisks2 to manipulate storage devices on their behalf.
There are separate defaults for active local users (allow_active),
other local users (allow_inactive) and everyone else (allow_any), each
of which can be set to no, yes, auth_self, auth_admin, auth_self or
auth_admin_keep. auth_self[_keep] means require the user's own password,
auth_admin[_keep] means require the password of a root-equivalent user
(in Debian that's uid 0 or gid sudo). These are usually set to some
reasonable compromise between "least privilege" and "things should work
automatically".
For finer-grained control or sysadmin overrides, there are configuration
files, which are the right place to put site-specific rules like "smcv may
mount and administer removable disks even if logged-in remotely". For
example, here's what my NAS box has, to get approximately the equivalent of
the old plugdev group semantics for USB disks plugged in to its front panel
(ability to run `udisksctl mount -b /dev/sde` or
`udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sde` in a ssh session):
# /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/usb-disks.pkla
[Allow mounting removable disks]
Identity=unix-group:plugdev
Action=org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-other-seat;org.freedesktop.udisks2.power-off-drive-other-seat;
ResultAny=yes
Unlike *.policy, these configuration files can match specific *identities*
(in practice Unix users and groups, although the concept is extensible).
In polkit 0.105 (jessie and stretch), upstream or Debian configuration is in
.ini-like files in /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/10-vendor.d/*.pkla,
and sysadmin overrides are in /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/*/*.pkla.
The syntax is like my example above.
In polkit 0.113 (upstream and experimental), upstream or Debian configuration
is JavaScript (just the language, not a full browser- or nodejs-style
runtime environment!) in /usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d/*.rules, and sysadmin
overrides for that go in /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/*.rules. My example above
would look something like this in JavaScript:
// /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/usb-disks.rules
polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
if ((action.id == "org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-other-seat" ||
action.id == "org.freedesktop.udisks2.power-off-drive-other-seat") &&
subject.isInGroup("plugdev")) {
return polkit.Result.YES;
}
});
> > Presumably there is also a way to override things and permanently
> > grant my account the relevant privilege. That would be fine for
> > single-user computers (including most laptops).
>
> That would probably be some policykit configuration file you can do this
The polkit configuration files are the right place to do this; but on a
laptop with systemd-logind, libpam-systemd and a PAM-enabled *dm or
login prompt working together correctly, you shouldn't usually need
configuration. Those configuration files are mostly useful in two
situations:
* A user needs to grant privileges to sessions that do not involve
physically sitting at the machine (cron, ssh), for which the usual
arguments like "an active local user could hard-power-off the machine,
so letting them power off gracefully is not a new denial-of-service"
do not apply
* A user needs to be allowed to do things that have an impact on other
users (administrative actions)
In either case, the conservative upstream and Debian default is
to say no, but a sysadmin can make better decisions about what should
be allowed on this particular machine.
S
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