srejbi.info^experimental

When seeing this message, I was wondering how this can come back again, as I have fixed it a long while ago by editing the /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.devicekit.disks.policy file (in Karmic Koala) allowing any user — not just the active ones — to mount usb harddrives. But, this file was gone… :(

…if not interested in the intermezzos, just the fix, scroll to the end… :)

However, discovered a new “suspicious” file in the same directory: /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.udisks.policy. I opened it with great hopes, and was not disappointed, right at the beginning was this section:

  <action id="org.freedesktop.udisks.filesystem-mount">
    <description>Mount a device</description>
    <description xml:lang="da">Montér en enhed</description>
    <description xml:lang="de">Gerät einhängen</description>
    <message>Authentication is required to mount the device</message>
    <message xml:lang="da">Autorisering er påkrævet for at montere et fil system</message>
    <message xml:lang="de">Zugriffsrechte werden benötigt um das Gerät einzuhängen</message>
    <defaults>
      <allow_any>no</allow_any>
      <allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
      <allow_active>yes</allow_active>
    < /defaults>
  < /action>

thought that I simply switch the following values, and that will be it:

      <allow_any>yes</allow_any>
      <allow_inactive>yes</allow_inactive>

well, doing it (and restarting policykit) was a disappointment, I still had these “Not Authorized” messages when plugging my external HDD in (or trying to mount it with Nautilus in my VNC session)…

Anyway, after some time googling I found nothing but some people complaining about the same thing… I tried reinstalling policykit, policykit-gnome, policykit-desktop-privileges, policykit-1, etc. no use.

Finally, this pointed me in the right direction:

locate policykit

…

/var/lib/dpkg/info/policykit-1.list

/var/lib/dpkg/info/policykit-1.md5sums

/var/lib/dpkg/info/policykit-1.postinst

/var/lib/dpkg/info/policykit-desktop-privileges.list

/var/lib/dpkg/info/policykit-desktop-privileges.md5sums

/var/lib/dpkg/info/policykit-gnome.list

/var/lib/dpkg/info/policykit-gnome.md5sums

…

let’s see what the desktop privileges package installs:
cat /var/lib/dpkg/info/policykit-desktop-privileges.list

/.

/var

/var/lib

/var/lib/polkit-1

/var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority

/var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/10-vendor.d

/var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/10-vendor.d/com.ubuntu.desktop.pkla

/usr

/usr/share

/usr/share/doc

/usr/share/doc/policykit-desktop-privileges

/usr/share/doc/policykit-desktop-privileges/copyright

/usr/share/doc/policykit-desktop-privileges/changelog.gz

ok, eager to see that policy file:
cat /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/10-vendor.d/com.ubuntu.desktop.pkla

[Mounting, checking, etc. of internal drives]

Identity=unix-group:admin

Action=org.freedesktop.udisks.filesystem-;org.freedesktop.udisks.drive-ata-smart

ResultActive=yes

[Change CPU Frequency scaling]

Identity=unix-group:admin

Action=org.gnome.cpufreqselector

ResultActive=yes
[Setting the clock]

Identity=unix-group:admin

Action=org.gnome.clockapplet.mechanism.*

ResultActive=yes

SOLUTION

ok, the structure and values in the file, especially “ResultActive” looked promising (I must admit, at this point I was too impatient and sleepy, so did not do further readings on the subject), so I just added the following 2 lines after every section in the file:
nano -w /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/10-vendor.d/com.ubuntu.desktop.pkla (sudo if you’re using your regular user account)

ResultAny=auth_admin

ResultInactive=yes

restarted policykit, and suddenly I could mount from Nautilus again… :)