#266 New Root Window

[Dan Essin]

I'm on Fedora 35 and the "New Root Window" option does not open a new root window. Typing at the password prompt doesn't do anything (expected? or not?). Pressing enter closes the dialog. And that's all.

[Roland Baudin]

Could you test with Xfe version 1.45. You can choose between three authentication mode (pkexec, sudo and su). Authentication with pkexec should work.

[joowie]

Another user noticed the same error, so I have tested xfe 1.45 at Debian Testing/Bookworm:

• pkexec: click at icon run a short time and cancel without a login window.
• su: will run successful.
• sudo: will run successfull.

I have tried 'pkexec xfe' and also as example 'pkexec geany' and found these messages:
'pkexec xfe': 'Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified'
'FXApp: :openDisplay: unable to open display :0.0'
'pkexec geany': 'Geany: cannot open display'

The final question: where is the bug?

[joowie]

I have found in the manpage of pkexec:

 In addition the PKEXEC_UID environment variable is set to the user
 id of the process invoking pkexec. As a result, pkexec will not
 allow you to run X11 applications as another user since the $DISPLAY
 and $XAUTHORITY environment variables are not set.

As I understand, pkexec is not usable for X11 programs as xfe.

[Roland Baudin]

OK, the problem is that the Debian packager forgot to include a file that is required to make pkexec authentication work.

This file is attached here for your convenience. Just copy it (as root) to /usr/share/polkit-1/actions and everything will be OK.

[Roland Baudin]

This is fixed in recent Fedora distributions.