PKCHECK

Section: pkcheck (1)
Updated: May 2009
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NAME

pkcheck - Check whether a process is authorized

SYNOPSIS

pkcheck [--version] [--help]
pkcheck --action-id action {--process { pid | pid,pid-start-time } | --system-bus-name busname} [--allow-user-interaction] [--detail key value...]

DESCRIPTION

pkcheck

is used to check whether a process, specified by either --process or --system-bus-name, is authorized for action. The --detail option can be used zero or more times to pass details about action. If --allow-user-interaction is passed, pkcheck blocks while waiting for authentication.

This command is a simple wrapper around the PolicyKit D-Bus interface; see the D-Bus interface documentation for details.

RETURN VALUE

If the specified process is authorized, pkcheck exits with a return value of 0. If the authorization result contains any details, these are printed on standard output as key/value pairs using environment style reporting, e.g. first the key followed by a an equal sign, then the value followed by a newline.

KEY1=VALUE1
KEY2=VALUE2
KEY3=VALUE3
...

Octects that are not in [a-zA-Z0-9_] are escaped using octal codes prefixed with \. For example, the UTF-8 string føl,你好 will be printed as f\303\270l\54\344\275\240\345\245\275.

If the specificied process is not authorized, pkcheck exits with a return value of 1 and a diagnostic message is printed on standard error. Details are printed on standard output.

If the specificied process is not authorized because no suitable authentication agent is available or if the --allow-user-interaction wasn't passed, pkcheck exits with a return value of 2 and a diagnostic message is printed on standard error. Details are printed on standard output.

If an error occured while checking for authorization, pkcheck exits with a return value of 127 with a diagnostic message printed on standard error.

If one or more of the options passed are malformed, pkcheck exits with a return value of 126. If stdin is a tty, then this manual page is also shown.

NOTES

Since process identifiers can be recycled, the caller should always use pid,pid-start-time to specify the process to check for authorization when using the --process option. The value of pid-start-time can be determined by consulting e.g. the proc(5) file system depending on the operating system. If only pid is passed to the --process option, then pkcheck will look up the start time itself but note that this may be racy.

AUTHOR

Written by David Zeuthen davidz@redhat.com with a lot of help from many others.

BUGS

Please send bug reports to either the distribution or the polkit-devel mailing list, see the link m[blue]http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/polkit-develm[] on how to subscribe.