Using polkit in a flatpak project

[Alexander Larsson]

It is not possible for a flatpak application to raise its own
privileges using policykit. Allowing an app to specify that it should
be launched with root privileges would not only be a sandbox escape,
but also a privilege escalation hole.

There is technically nothing in flatpak that disallows linking to the
polkit libraries, and there is no reason for a policykit agent to not
*work* when its inside a flatpak.
However you are not allowed to install policy kit policy or rule
files, or system-bus dbus services, which is what creates the
privilege escalation step.
On Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 12:46 AM Guy Streeter <guy.streeter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have written a GTK-based GUI application for which I would like to create a flatpak package. My application includes a privileged back-end service which is started by dbus and authenticated using PolicyKit. It is written in Python using Gobject introspection.
>
> I have not found a runtime containing the polkit libraries and executables, nor the gi.repository Polkit namespace. Before I go any further along this path: Is there a reason why polkit is missing?
>
> Is using polkit in a flatpak application something I should expect to work? If so, how should I proceed?
>
> thanks,
> --Guy
>
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 Alexander Larsson                                Red Hat, Inc
       alexl at redhat.com         alexander.larsson at gmail.com