[Pkg-privacy-maintainers] Bug#814190: tails-installer: tails installer fails to authentication

[Antoine Beaupré]

Package: tails-installer
Version: 4.4.6+dfsg-1~bpo8+1
Followup-For: Bug #814190

Hi,

I am using the Xmonad window manager, and starting my session with the
"xmonad" session.

policykit-1 is installed:

ii  policykit-1       0.105-8       amd64         framework for managing administrative p

In fact, it seems the installer actually started it as well:

anarcat  20869  0.3  1.3 1117428 48532 pts/3   Sl+  09:11   0:06          |           \_ /usr/bin/python -tt /usr/lib/tails_installer/tails-installer -u -n -P -m -x
anarcat   2587  0.0  0.0   4336   712 pts/3    S+   09:39   0:00          |               \_ /bin/sh -c /usr/bin/pkexec /usr/bin/syslinux  -d syslinux /dev/sdb1
root      2588  0.0  0.1 282856  5876 pts/3    Sl+  09:39   0:00          |                   \_ /usr/bin/pkexec /usr/bin/syslinux -d syslinux /dev/sdb1
root      2591  0.0  0.1  80504  4428 pts/3    S+   09:39   0:00          |                       \_ /usr/lib/policykit-1/polkit-agent-helper-1 anarcat cookie0

Polkitd is running, as root:

root      1587  0.0  0.2 283144  7668 ?        Ssl  fév10   0:00 /usr/lib/policykit-1/polkitd --no-debug

$ sudo systemctl status polkitd
● polkitd.service - Authenticate and Authorize Users to Run Privileged Tasks
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/polkitd.service; static)
   Active: active (running) since mer 2016-02-10 10:00:10 EST; 23h ago
 Main PID: 1587 (polkitd)
   CGroup: /system.slice/polkitd.service
           └─1587 /usr/lib/policykit-1/polkitd --no-debug

fév 10 10:00:09 angela polkitd[1587]: started daemon version 0.105 using authority implementation `local' version `0.105'
fév 11 09:39:12 angela polkitd(authority=local)[1587]: Registered Authentication Agent for unix-process:2587:8516923 (system bus name :1.197 [/usr/bin/pkexec /usr/bin/sysli..._US.UTF-8)
Hint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.

Yet, I also get the behavior described in the original bug report.

Now I understand the need to standardise and avoid wasting time
supporting existing configuration such as ours - but simply depending
on polkit will not be sufficient in this case, it seems.

Maybe I screwed up something (deliberately, even!) by disabling some
part of polkit or similar: i remember having to turn off gnome-keyring
because it was doing amazingly stupid shit with my ssh and gpg
keys. But I tried looking through changes in /etc and couldn't find
anything obvious: the polkit files are there, in pam, and it is
running.

Pointers on how to actually make this work are welcome! It could very
well be this is a bug with polkit or the xmonad session manager more
than anything...

Oh, and obviously, starting the installer in a console and typing in
the password works, so it's a fair workaround... :) But I wonder how
well this will work in desktops like XFCE or other non-gnomish things.

Thanks!

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.3
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'proposed-updates'), (500, 'stable'), (500, 'oldstable'), (1, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.2.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages tails-installer depends on:
ii  gdisk              0.8.10-2
ii  genisoimage        9:1.1.11-3
ii  gir1.2-glib-2.0    1.42.0-2.2
ii  gir1.2-gtk-3.0     3.14.5-1+deb8u1
ii  gir1.2-udisks-2.0  2.1.3-5
ii  mtools             4.0.18-2
ii  p7zip-full         9.20.1~dfsg.1-4.1+deb8u1
ii  policykit-1        0.105-8
ii  python             2.7.9-1
ii  python-configobj   5.0.6-1
ii  python-gi          3.14.0-1
ii  python-urlgrabber  3.9.1-4.1
ii  syslinux           3:6.03+dfsg-5+deb8u1

tails-installer recommends no packages.

tails-installer suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information