Nixpkgs: Running pkexec without a graphical agent fails even with falling back onto pkttyagent

[CMCDragonkai]

Issue description

Running pkexec pwd gives you:

polkit-agent-helper-1: error response to PolicyKit daemon: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1.Error.Failed: No session for cookie
==== AUTHENTICATION FAILED ===
Error executing command as another user: Not authorized

This incident has been reported.

I don't have a graphical polkit agent running, so pkexec should fallback onto pkttyagent. However it doesn't seem to work in this case.

Note that to make it work, I have to run pkttyagent in a different terminal binding to the PID of the first terminal that is running pkexec pwd, and that terminal will show the same workflow but will have succeeded at authentication. But this shouldn't be necessary as the pkttyagent should just work on the original terminal when called by pkexec.

[erlandsona]

I'm trying to run hdajackretask to get the internal audio working on my system and before I downgraded back to 17.03 I couldn't even get it to run, now that it's running when I try to apply a configuration and type my password root or otherwise I'm getting this error.

Can you explain a bit more how to fix?

[EstalillaJ]

Thanks for tip @CMCDragonkai, saved me some investigation time.

@erlandsona It's probably too late but what he means is you should open two terminals.
In the first terminal run the following command to get its PID.

echo $$

In the second terminal run

pkttyagent --process PID_FROM_STEP_1

In the first terminal, do whatever you need to do with pkexec.

[Jamie-505]

saved me right there!

just in case: if you need to do this over ssh just open 2 connections in two terminals and run @EstalillaJ code!

[concatime]

Any news on this?

[erlandsona]

@concatime see @EstalillaJ's comment that's what worked for me. Hence all the 👍 's.

[concatime]

I would rather call his solution a hack until it really get solved ;)

[Sinbiosis]

Yeah, i'm still having the same problem. If there is a fix, i'd be happy to know.

[4him]

This only solution saved me

[kevinjoan16]

@EstalillaJ You've just saved my job. I'm grateful

[antonin07130]

yep same bug. Using Ubuntu 18 LTS and pkexec 0.105

[phisigma]

Is this related with bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=841878?

I use Ubuntu 18.04 with Mate and running /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/polkit-mate/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1 solves the problem, but only temporary. Furthermore, when you create another admin user and log into his account, he does not observe any errors.

Perhaps there is a permanent solution for my account? (Besides adding above polkit command to startup programms.)

[wassafr]

@EstalillaJ Saved my day

[wirtoo]

@EstalillaJ Thank you very much!

[dereks]

@EstalillaJ Hit me up next time you're near Seattle / Lynnwood. I owe you a beer.

In my case, it was an Ubuntu 18.04 VPS, after I borked a file under /etc/sudoers.d/. (Nothing to do with NixOS.)

[daptordarattler]

Life saver

[agustinlacorazza]

Amazing, you save my life.

[rmarzocchi84]

@EstalillaJ you save me!

[iFreilicht]

It seems that this is due to the authentication agent not running. I am on Ubuntu, but maybe this will help in solving this problem:

I had to install policykit-1-gnome:

sudo apt install policykit-1-gnome

And then run it (same terminal using &, other terminal, or adding it to autostart all worked):

/usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1

After that pkexec worked as expected.

[swansonba]

Yup, saved my bacon.