[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#526854: Bug#526854: hal: HAL should not require PolicyKit

[Fredrik Tolf]

On Mon, 2009-05-04 at 21:06 +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:
> That basically reads, like you are missing proper documentation.
> Have you installed policykit-doc and read the documentation provided there (best
> read with devhelp)?
[...]
> We invented groups like plugdev/netdev/powerdev in HAL, to control access to the
> HAL D-Bus service. Yet the exact meaning of those groups is very vague (or can
> you tell me which privileges you exactly get by being a member of e.g. group
> plugdev?)
[...]
> Again, the group-based approach is less flexible, too coarse grained, not
> dynamic and not scalable. Thus PolicyKit is a definit improvement (security wise).
[...]
> What I miss from your arguments are solid, technical reasons, why PolicyKit is,
> as you put it, "a bad idea".

Based on your comments, I think you misunderstand me. I don't think
PolicyKit is a bad idea, and I agree that the groups previously used
were too coarsely grained and too unclear about what privileges were
granted through them.

What I do think is a bad idea is installing policykit by default, as a
hard dependency of HAL. Even if I don't know exactly what privileges are
granted through the `plugdev' group, I do know for sure that without
being a member of it, no privileges at all are granted, which is
something I cannot necessarily know with PolicyKit.

In fact, I installed policykit-doc, as you suggested, and from reading
it, it seems that it is the inidividual packages that grant privileges
by default simply by installing policy files
into /usr/share/PolicyKit/policy. For example, merely by having
NetworkManager installed, local users would automatically be granted
privilege to change networks, whereas previously, I would have to make
them part of the netdev group, explicitly.

My point, therefore, is that since the installation of PolicyKit grants
privileges to users merely by virtue of being installed, it should not
be installed automatically. If it is installed automatically, I should
at least have to turn it on explicitly.

Fredrik Tolf