POLICYKIT.CONF(5)PolicyKit.confPOLICYKIT.CONF(5)NAMEPolicyKit.conf - PolicyKit configuration file
DESCRIPTION
The /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf configuration file provides a way for
system administrators to override policy for mechanisms that use the
PolicyKit library to determine whether a caller is allowed to use the
mechanism.
Changes to this configuration file are immediately propagated to
running processes using the PolicyKit library. If the configuration
file is invalid, processes using this library will log this fact to the
system logger and the library will only only return no as the answer to
processes using it.
The polkit-config-file-validate(1) tool can be used to verify that the
configuration file is valid.
FILE FORMAT
The configuration file is an XML document. It must have the following
doctype declaration:
<!DOCTYPE pkconfig PUBLIC
"-//freedesktop//DTD PolicyKit Configuration 1.0//EN"
"http://hal.freedesktop.org/releases/PolicyKit/1.0/config.dtd">
The following elements may be present in the configuration file:
config
This is the root element. A single attribute version must be present
and must be set to "0.1" at this point. There can only be one config
element in the configuration file.
match
This element is for matching information related to the decision making
process and includes values describing both the caller and the action.
This element can be embedded in both config and other match elements
(hence allowing for nested matching).
There can only be a single attribute in each match element and POSIX
Extended Regular Expression syntax are supported in the value part. The
following attributes are supported:
user
This matches on the users login name.
action
For matching on the given action being queried for, for example
action="org.foo.*" will match on all actions whose action
identifier begins with the string "org.foo.".
return
This element is for used to specify what result the PolicyKit library
will return. It can only be embedded in config and match elements and
can embed no elements itself. The return element is typically used
deeply inside a number of match elements. A single attribute, result is
supported and it can assume the following values:
no
Access denied.
auth_self
Access denied, but authentication of the caller as himself will
grant access to only that caller.
auth_self_keep_session
Access denied, but authentication of the caller as himself will
grant access to any caller in the session of the caller belongs to.
auth_self_keep_always
Access denied, but authentication of the caller as himself will
grant access any caller with the given uid in the future.
auth_admin
Access denied, but authentication of the caller as an
administrative user will grant access to only that caller.
auth_admin_keep_session
Access denied, but authentication of the caller as an
administrative user will grant access to any caller in the session
of the caller belongs to.
auth_admin_keep_always
Access denied, but authentication of the caller as an
administrative user will grant access any caller with the given uid
in the future.
yes
Access granted.
define_admin_auth
This element is used to specify the meaning of "authenticate as
administrator". It is normally used at the top-level but can also be
used deep inside a number of match elements for conditional behavior.
There can only be a single attribute in each define_admin_auth element.
POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax is not supported in the value
part, however multiple values to match on can be separated with the bar
(|) character. The following attributes are supported:
user
Administrator authentication means authenticate as the given
user(s). If no define_admin_auth element is given, the default is
to use user="root" e.g. administrator authentication mean
authenticate as the super user.
group
Administrator authentication means that any user in the groups
matching the given value can be used to authenticate. Typically, on
a system with the root account disabled one wants to use something
like group="wheel" to e.g. enable all UNIX users in the UNIX group
wheel to be able to authentication whenever administrator
authentication is required.
EXAMPLES
For brevity, the standard XML and DOCTYPE headers as well as the
top-level config are omitted in the following configuration file
examples. The actions used may also be fictional, use polkit-action(1),
to learn about the actions available on your system.
ALLOW EVERYTHING
The users "davidz" and "bateman" are allowed to do any action:
<match user="davidz|bateman">
<return result="yes"/>
</match>
MOUNTING FIXED DRIVES
Suppose the action org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-fixed is used to
determine whether mounting internal hard drives are allowed. Then this
configuration file
<match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-fixed">
<match user="davidz">
<return result="yes"/>
</match>
<match user="freddy">
<return result="no"/>
</match>
</match>
specifies that user "davidz" is always allowed to do the action, while
user "freddy" is never allowed to do the action. Other users will be
subject to the defaults results specified in the .policy file
describing the action.
AVOIDING THE ROOT PASSWORD
Suppose the group wheel contains the users on a system who are allowed
to carry out administrative tasks (ie. tasks that would usually require
the root password) on a system where the root account is disabled. Then
<define_admin_auth group="wheel"/>
can be used to specify that users in said group can authenticate using
their own password in instances where the system would normally prompt
for the root password.
AUTHOR
Written by David Zeuthen david@fubar.dk with a lot of help from many
others.
BUGS
Please send bug reports to either the distribution or the hal mailing
list, see http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/hal. to
subscribe.
SEE ALSOPolicyKit(8), polkit-config-file-validate(1), polkit-action(1), polkit-
auth(1)PolicyKit August 2007 POLICYKIT.CONF(5)
