Ubuntu – PolicyKit rules never come into effect

policykit

I'm trying to write a new .rules file for PolicyKit. My test attempt (in the directory /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/) looks like this: 

polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
    polkit.spawn(["rm","/home/gabriel/test"]);
    if (action.id == "org.freedesktop.policykit.exec") {
        polkit.log("action=" + action);
        polkit.log("subject=" + subject);
    }
    return polkit.Result.NOT_HANDLED;
});

But as far as I can tell, this code is never run. The test file is still there, and there's no log output after running something like $ pkexec -u otheruser bash

(I have tried marking the .rules files as executable.)

Best Answer

If you are on Ubuntu 19.04 (or lower) then you are still using the old version of PolKit, where there are no .rules files but only .pkla and .conf files.

On the command prompt, do:

pkaction --version

If it says < 0.106, then you can only use the old syntax.

You can create a .pkla file in /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/

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