Xfce Forum

dlder

Member

Registered: 2019-10-30

Posts: 5

Execute desktop launcher items as root

Hi,

I'm on SLES 15.1 and xfce 4.12 / thunar 1.8.4

I've found a forum post describing the same problem that I have, but no solution:
https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=12890

I can create desktop launcher items and launch them if I login as a normal user, but when I try to launch 'em as root I get an error after a few seconds "Did not receive a reply. ... message bus security policy blocked the reply ..."

So, I guess this is some kind of "security" feature... maybe changing the mentioned bus security policy would allow me to run those shortcuts as root?
How can I do that? I haven't found anything useful via Google yet...
Or maybe the problem lies somewhere else?

Thank you!

dlder

Member

Registered: 2019-10-30

Posts: 5

Re: Execute desktop launcher items as root

Forgot to mention: I've already tried this thunar setting, which doesn't help either:

xfconf-query --channel thunar --property /misc-exec-shell-scripts-by-default --create --type bool --set true

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,491

Re: Execute desktop launcher items as root

Hello and welcome.

xfconf-query won't work for root when logged in as a user. xfconfd is a user-based process and runs with the rights and privileges, and in the session of the logged in user. 

I can create desktop launcher items and launch them if I login as a normal user, but when I try to launch 'em as root I get an error after a few seconds "Did not receive a reply. ... message bus security policy blocked the reply ..."

I don't quote understand what you are trying to do here. Can you add more specific information?
- as which user are you creating the desktop launcher?
- on which desktop are you placing the launcher? The user desktop?
- how are you launching them as root?

And most importantly, exactly what are you trying to accomplish? What is your use case?

Note: generally, if you are trying to run a process as root from within a user session, you need to use pkexec (or the depricated gksudo if your distro still offers it).

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dlder

Member

Registered: 2019-10-30

Posts: 5

Re: Execute desktop launcher items as root

Sry that my post wasn't more clear...

What works:
- login as normal user
- create desktop launcher for bash script
- execute it

what doesn't work:
- login as root
- create desktop launcher for bash script
- execute it

So, basically something hinders the user root to do something, that even normal users can do. Which imho is insane...

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,491

Re: Execute desktop launcher items as root

Thanks for the clarification.

Testing it on my system (Thunar 1.8.9 & xfdesktop 4.14.1) and it works. So it's either a bug with the version of thunar/xfdesktop that you are running, or something else that is blocking it.

Does SLES have some sort of security policy in place that prevents root use of this? I'll download the ISO and have a look.

On a bit of a hunch, can you reboot your system, login as root first, and then try again?

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dlder

Member

Registered: 2019-10-30

Posts: 5

Re: Execute desktop launcher items as root

Thanks for your time and effort; really appreciate it!!

-> I usually only have a root account. I only quickly created a normal user to test what I read in this other forum post, where launching shell scripts from the desktop as user works :-)

> security policy
Hm, I NEVER use a GUI... this is my first and as Gnome seems to be a piece of garbage (no offense, just imho), I'm now trying this desktop manager.
And it works pretty well (hate the file manager, but I don't need it^^).

Long story short: I have no idea how to check anything relating to X11, Xfce4 or Thunar :-\

But I don't have AppArmor installed; it's a "Basic" installation with XFCE Desktop.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,491

Re: Execute desktop launcher items as root

An update.

I've installed SLES 15.1 with Xfce and enabled the root account (BTW: openSUSE really frowns at doing this). And yes, what you describes happens here as well. However, if you start thunar, navigate to the Desktop folder, and then execute the file, it works. So, its not a SLES-specific security setting that it preventing this.

SLES 15.1 is running xfdesktop 4.12.4 and thunar 1.8.4. There is a problem with this combination. xfdesktop 4.12.x requires and uses the thunarx api version 2. Thunar 1.8.x provides the new thunarx api version 3. Note: xfdesktop relies on thunar through thunarx to provide file management capabilities. Thunar 1.8.x is designed to run with xfdesktop 4.13.x and vice versa. It looks like this incompatibility is the cause for this problem.

I am not too familiar with opensuse. Is there a way to either upgrade xfdesktop or downgrade thunar (to 1.6.x) to test whether this theory is correct?

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dlder

Member

Registered: 2019-10-30

Posts: 5

Re: Execute desktop launcher items as root

Wow, you are fucking awesome! :-)

Thanks for all this usefull information!!

On SLES: you can, but shouldn't use any other source then the official repositories. So unfortunately, I cannot upgrade.

BUT: after a bit of fiddling around, I got Kaspersky to work as a "normal user", so I can use it the suggested way :-)

Again: totally nice of you for checking all that; I put hours this, into trying everything I could and never knew, the problem didn't lie with my scripts/settings/...

Cheers!