PKCHECK(1)

NAME
pkcheck - Check whether a process is authorized

SYNOPSIS

pkcheck [--version] [--help]

pkcheck [--list-temp]

pkcheck [--revoke-temp]

pkcheck --action-id action {--process { pid | pid,pid-start-time } | --system-bus-name busname} [--allow-user-interaction] [--enable-internal-agent] [--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.

The invocation pkcheck --list-temp will list all temporary authorizations for the current session and pkcheck --revoke-temp will revoke all temporary authorizations for the current session.

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 the specificied process is not authorized because the authentication dialog / request was dismissed by the user, pkcheck exits with a return value of 3 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.

AUTHENTICATION AGENT

pkcheck, like any other PolicyKit application, will use the authentication agent registered for the process in question. However, if no authentication agent is available, then pkcheck can register its own textual authentication agent if the option --enable-internal-agent is passed.

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 http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/polkit-devel on how to subscribe.

SEE ALSO

polkit(8), pkaction(1), pkexec(1)