Re: [gentoo-user] [poll] What is your session state?

[Samuli Suominen <ssuominen@gentoo.org>]

On 10/02/14 00:43, walt wrote:
> Recent threads about consolekit vs logind(systemd) have made me curious, so
> I've been studying...
>
> A few of us have had recent problems with things like plugging USB sticks,
> which once worked transparently but now require root privileges.
>
> I've discovered that my own such problems are caused by this:
>
> $loginctl show-session 1   (I have only one session, cleverly named '1')
>
> Id=1
> Timestamp=Sun 2014-02-09 07:18:32 PST
> TimestampMonotonic=389744251
> VTNr=1
> TTY=/dev/tty1
> Remote=no
> Service=login
> Scope=session-1.scope
> Leader=426
> Audit=1
> Type=tty
> Class=user
> Active=no   <=========================  should be 'yes'
> State=online  <=======================  should be 'active'
>
> Users of consolekit, don't feel neglected.  You should try this instead:
>
> $ck-list-sessions 
> Session1:
>         unix-user = '1001'
>         realname = '(null)'
>         seat = 'Seat2'
>         session-type = ''
>         active = FALSE    (correct because I'm ssh'd into a remote box)
>         x11-display = ':0'
>         x11-display-device = '/dev/tty2'
>         display-device = '/dev/tty1'
>         remote-host-name = ''
>         is-local = FALSE
>         on-since = '2014-02-09T22:00:10.750312Z'
>         login-session-id = '1'
>
> Canek explained that the reason my session is not 'active' is that I'm
> not using a Display Manager (gdm kdm lightdm), which talks to logind or
> consolekit and vouches for my physical presence at the local keyboard.
>
> However, when I do the same thing on arch linux (as a virtualbox guest)
> I see that my session (running gnome) is 'active' and I have no trouble
> powering off the virtual machine as an unprivileged user.
>
> Any ideas how I can fix it?
>
> BTW, this helped me to understand some of the buzzwords I used above:
>
> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/multiseat/
>
>

sys-auth/pambase with USE="consolekit" or USE="systemd" brings in
pam_ck_connector.so (ConsoleKit) or pam_systemd.so (systemd)
is required in login to get the initial active session:
ConsoleKit or systemd-logind starts during boot -> user logins to tty1
-> PAM triggers pam_ck_connector.so or pam_systemd.so -> and now you
have one
initial session, second one is started after 'startx' and the
login-session-id is the key knowing it's the same user now in X11,
instead of console since
it changes the first session inactive (since it knows you now started
X11 and are no longer in console) and activates the newly started one in X11

however display managers with *built-in* CK or logind support are
special, and more straightforward and directly talk to CK or logind, and
thus, work
somewhat more easily by skipping many possible problems

maybe you can somehow do it with GDM so that remote session shows
active, i don't know about that, but what you can do is write your own
polkit
rules like:

Put the following content to file: /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/51-local.rules

polkit.addAdminRule(function(action, subject) {
    return ["unix-group:wheel"];
});



Now users in group "wheel" should be able to do anything, this is also
in "man 8 polkit"