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rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

Again Mate and permissions problem

Installed an older PC with ASCII beta from DVD: first just to CLI, modified the sources to read everything from the internet, made the automatic decryption work, then installed Xorg, LightDM and Mate desktop. Ended up with the same permission problems as described in https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=1952.

Looked into my notes und installed:

apt install libpolkit-backend-1-0-consolekit libpolkit-gobject-1-0-consolekit

Unfortunately installing these two packages remove most of the desktop again. How can I fix the issues?

The link in my post a month ago to Lurker is dead now:

Database message source pull failure (not found):
The specified message has been deleted. 

I am sure I made a printout, but can't find the paper any more.

Thanks, rolfie

catprints

Member

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 145  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

You may have to remove the elogind backend or elogind gobject to get consolekit packages without removing a bunch of mate stuff.
I misplaced that complete info also.

Last edited by catprints (2018-04-30 14:04:24)

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"The obstacle is the path."

GNUser

Member

Registered: 2017-03-16

Posts: 570  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

rolfie, my setup is very similar to yours (Devuan ASCII with LightDM and MATE) and I'm not having any permissions issues.

Is there a particular reason you are installing consolekit and friends? Neither MATE nor LightDM require consolekit, so maybe the consolekit packages are installed on your system but not actually being used.

I have no packages installed on my system with "consolekit" anywhere in the name. I have these with "elogind" in the name:

elogind 234.4-1+devuan1.5
libelogind0:amd64 234.4-1+devuan1.5
libpam-elogind:amd64 234.4-1+devuan1.5
libpolkit-backend-1-0-elogind:amd64 0.105-18+devuan2.4
libpolkit-gobject-1-0-elogind:amd64 0.105-18+devuan2.4

If I were you I'd backup my system, uninstall all the consolekit packages, and install the above elogind packages. I bet your permissions issues would go away.

Last edited by GNUser (2018-05-08 20:32:40)

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

The linked post refers to a PC I setup about a month ago. This PC is used by my wife since two weeks and is working fine. There I used consolekit because it was known to be working (also used on my old Wheezy ....), and the modification did the job to allow shutdown, open USB devices,  starts synaptic from menu and solved issues in the menu with root rights. This is why I stick to consolekit.

Looks my notes are shortend, maybe even wrong and following them screwed up the installation of the second PC. Got Mate back up again, but the issues remain. I checked  and tried to compare the two installations, it looks like they are mostly identical, but e.g in the moment I can't even mount any USB stick, neither as root nor in Mate: permission denied.

I am stuck.

Thanks, rolfie

catprints

Member

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 145  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

Author: Irrwahn
Date: 2018-02-14 06:37 -600
To: dng
Subject: [DNG] IMPORTANT! How to fix degraded session management after Devuan ASCII upgrade.

PLEASE NOTE:
The following only applies to already existing ASCII systems that got
upgraded to the newest package versions as present in the repositories.
Fresh installations of Devuan ASCII 2.0.0 Beta should not be affected.

TL;DR
-----
Make sure you got the correct libpolkit-backend installed!

Background
----------
It would appear that under certain circumstances an unsuitable flavor
of libpolkit-backend-1-0-XXXX gets pulled in upon upgrade. This can lead
to a temporary loss of desktop session related functionality, namely the
ability to user-mount removable drives or to shutdown/restart the system
using the GUI controls provided by the respective desktop environment. The
issue was ultimately caused by the recent addition of elogind to the
repositories, or rather the repackaging of policykit-1 that followed suit.

Resolution
----------
1. Make sure you have at least one of (traditional) consolekit or (new)
elogind installed. (Note: You can have both installed and active; which
one is actually used however is decided by which libpolkit-backend you
choose to install, see 4.)

2. Make sure (at least one of) the above is activated. You may do so by
interactively running the 'pam-auth-update' command as root.

3. Ensure the following packages got installed:
     policykit-1              0.105-18+devuan2.4
     libpolkit-agent-1-0      0.105-18+devuan2.4

4. Install one of the mutually exclusive policykit backend libs, i.e.
   - EITHER -
     libpolkit-backend-1-0-elogind      0.105-18+devuan2.4  and
     libpolkit-gobject-1-0-elogind      0.105-18+devuan2.4

   - OR -
     libpolkit-backend-1-0-consolekit   0.105-18+devuan2.4  and
     libpolkit-gobject-1-0-consolekit   0.105-18+devuan2.4

depending on which session manager backend you intend to use, see 1.

In case you find you have a backend with -systemd in the name installed:
that one will _not_ work, and is most likely the cause why things went
sideways in the first place.

5. After making changes to the session management you should either reboot
the system or at least cycle through runlevel 1.

Note: Depending on what login manager you use in conjunction with which
desktop environment you might have to experiment a bit to find out which
of consolekit or elogind works best for you (or works[TM] at all).

Bottom line: As always in life, keep your backends covered. ;-)

HTH, HANVD, and enjoy the ASCII Beta!

Best regards
Urban

--
Sapere aude!

I had saved this after all. I used consolekit for a time and elogind lately. They work for my use at least.

Last edited by catprints (2018-04-30 20:45:01)

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"The obstacle is the path."

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

@catprints: thanks for the copy of the link. Helps me to recall the details.

Still I am stuck, though I learned something.

• Did a fresh install of ASCII, just base system, no desktop, from DVD, root and home on separate devices and both encrypted.

• Edited the sources.list to work from the internet. Update/upgrade.

• Made the auto-decrypt work.

• Installed xorg, lightdm and mate-extra. Added synaptic.

• Reboot: all works as expected, got consolekit installed.

• Started to add packages with apt install in blocks to build my usual working enviroment. After each block checked the installed policykit-files with dpkg -l, only got consoleklit stuff back.

• When finished, rebooted => issues back again. No change in the policykit-files installed, still on consolekit.

In the moment I am stuck. No idea what may cause the issues. Suspect tools like gnome-system-tools.

Probably need more time to figure out what causes the problems.

Hints are welcome.

Thanks, rolfie

GNUser

Member

Registered: 2017-03-16

Posts: 570  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

rolfie, sorry to hear you're still struggling with this. I installed ASCII from a Miyo live image, then proceeded to install MATE and lightdm. It was at that point that all the permissions issues kicked in (any time I tried to use a thumbdrive or even just shut down the machine, I either got a permissions error or things failed silently. Those are the troubles I remember, but there were other similar issues).

For me it was simply a matter of installing two packages (libpolkit-backend-1-0-elogind and libpolkit-gobject-1-0-elogind) and all problems immediately went away. I didn't need to do any configuration, it was truly just a matter of having the right packages. It was only after a few days of everything working that I got brave and uninstalled all the consolekit-related packages, and things simply continued humming along.

If you don't have a strong reason to stick with consolekit, why don't you try your luck with elogind?

Last edited by GNUser (2018-05-21 12:25:06)

fanfoue70

Member

Registered: 2018-04-23

Posts: 15  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

Just wondering...
Why was the elogind package added to the repositories while elogind is part of systemd and Devuan was created to get rid of it ?
https://github.com/elogind/elogind

Elogind is the systemd project's "logind"

All of the credit for elogind should go to the systemd developers

Maybe for dependency reasons ?
For practical reasons ? To make polkit work ?

Please bring me light :-)
Kind regards.

golinux

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 3,316  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

Don't be fooled by the name.  We are using Gentoo's forked version of elogind that doesn't need systemd.

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fanfoue70

Member

Registered: 2018-04-23

Posts: 15  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

Ok thanks.

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

Well, pure LightDM and Mate worked fine with consolekit. Could start Synaptic from the menu, get USB sticks automounted and no access issues, shutdown from menu and the LightDM panel both worked. Have not yet figured out which package really screws the settings.

Anyhow, switched to elongind, and 75% of the problems seem to be gone by now: everything from Mate seems to work.

Open issue: the Shutdown, Reboot etc. options in the LightDM panel are greyed out. Hints what needs to be done?

Thanks, Rolfie

GNUser

Member

Registered: 2017-03-16

Posts: 570  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

Those power options in LightDM are greyed out for me, too. I don't know how to fix.

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

Also found a fix for the LightDM issue. I knew that I had created a special settings file when troubleshooting the same issue two months ago on my wife's PC. Just couldn't find neither the description nor the file I created.

A thorough search today revealed where I did hide a backup copy and a hint from where I got the tip: I found somebody using LightDM/Mate on askubuntu.com who wanted to disable these functions for all users. That article gave me the handle to do the opposite.

You add this file to /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/enable-shutdown-reboot.pkla

[Enable lightdm shutdown/reboot]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.login1.reboot;org.freedesktop.login1.reboot-multiple-sessions;org.freedesktop.login1.power-off;org.freedesktop.login1.power-off-multiple-sessions;
ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=yes
ResultActive=yes

I deliberately did not enable Hibernate and Standby, I never use this.

Hope this helps also other readers.

Thanks, Rolfie

Last edited by rolfie (2018-05-13 17:20:09)

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

Re: Again Mate and permissions problem

For the time being I can live with what I have currently. Nevertheless I will try to find out what screws the consolekit settings.

rolfie