Dear Maintainer, As suggested, I took a look at gnome-system-log package to prompt user to elevate privileges. I enclosed the debdiff.
About the patch: I have chosen to always prompt the user and to fallback on opening the logs with the current user permission if the prompt is dismissed. A ***major*** change in this patch is the change of DBusActivatable settings from true to false in the data/org.gnome.Logs.dekstop file. This basically make the data/org.gnome.Logs.servicefile useless and nullify the commit 4972c62c34579983ed4a65946fa9115957ed53e3 from upstream. This may have some other drawback I am not aware of. I did this because I could not make pkexec to work properly with the DBus service. The first activation would work fine, but next call will not prompt the user and do nothing till dbus-daemin timeout. > Jul 21 01:52:10 arrbpc dbus-daemon[1383]: Activating service > name='org.gnome.Logs' > Jul 21 01:54:10 arrbpc dbus-daemon[1383]: Failed to activate service > 'org.gnome.Logs': timed out gnome-logs and gnome-logs-pkexec commands would still work in command line and re-allow user to be prompted. > Jul 21 01:50:02 arrbpc dbus-daemon[1383]: Successfully activated > service 'org.gnome.Logs' I am not fully knowledgeable about DBus and other issue, maybe someone has the answer to this. About internationalization: The internationalization is not supported for the debian/*.policy file added. gnome-system-log package use CDBS package but I'm not and there is probably a way to do this by overriding the proper recipe in debian/rule but I do not know is this is the way to do. As I am a newcomer, I would welcome any feedback. Cheers, -- Antoine Bernard
diff -Nru gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/changelog gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/changelog --- gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/changelog 2017-02-05 20:57:42.000000000 +0100 +++ gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/changelog 2017-07-21 23:38:19.000000000 +0200 @@ -1,3 +1,14 @@ +gnome-logs (3.22.1-2.1) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium + + * Non-maintainer upload. + * Prompt user to elevate privileges. Closes: #857391. + + debian/control.in: + - Add policykit-1 to dependencies. + + debian/patches: + - Added 02-elevate-privileges.patch. + + -- Antoine Bernard <abern...@crans.org> Fri, 21 Jul 2017 23:38:19 +0200 + gnome-logs (3.22.1-2) unstable; urgency=medium * debian/patches/01-no-boot-ids.patch: diff -Nru gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/control gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/control --- gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/control 2017-02-05 20:57:42.000000000 +0100 +++ gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/control 2017-07-21 23:38:19.000000000 +0200 @@ -26,7 +26,8 @@ Architecture: any Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, - gsettings-desktop-schemas + gsettings-desktop-schemas, + policykit-1 Description: viewer for the systemd journal. The GNOME Logs application is an application to view system logs (from the systemd journal) for the GNOME Desktop environment. diff -Nru gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/control.in gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/control.in --- gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/control.in 2017-02-05 20:57:42.000000000 +0100 +++ gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/control.in 2017-07-21 23:38:19.000000000 +0200 @@ -22,7 +22,8 @@ Architecture: any Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, - gsettings-desktop-schemas + gsettings-desktop-schemas, + policykit-1 Description: viewer for the systemd journal. The GNOME Logs application is an application to view system logs (from the systemd journal) for the GNOME Desktop environment. diff -Nru gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/gnome-logs.install gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/gnome-logs.install --- gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/gnome-logs.install 1970-01-01 01:00:00.000000000 +0100 +++ gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/gnome-logs.install 2017-07-21 23:38:19.000000000 +0200 @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +debian/org.debian.pkexec.gnome-logs.policy /usr/share/polkit-1/actions +debian/gnome-logs-pkexec /usr/bin/ diff -Nru gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/gnome-logs-pkexec gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/gnome-logs-pkexec --- gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/gnome-logs-pkexec 1970-01-01 01:00:00.000000000 +0100 +++ gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/gnome-logs-pkexec 2017-07-21 23:38:19.000000000 +0200 @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +#!/bin/sh + +pkexec /usr/bin/gnome-logs +# Run unprivileged if the user dismissed the auth dialog +if [ $? -eq 126 ] ; then + exec /usr/bin/gnome-logs +fi diff -Nru gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/org.debian.pkexec.gnome-logs.policy gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/org.debian.pkexec.gnome-logs.policy --- gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/org.debian.pkexec.gnome-logs.policy 1970-01-01 01:00:00.000000000 +0100 +++ gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/org.debian.pkexec.gnome-logs.policy 2017-07-21 23:38:19.000000000 +0200 @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE policyconfig PUBLIC + "-//freedesktop//DTD PolicyKit Policy Configuration 1.0//EN" + "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/PolicyKit/1/policyconfig.dtd"> +<policyconfig> + + <action id="org.gnome.Logs.run"> + <description>Run gnome-logs</description> + <message>Authentication is required to view log</message> + <defaults> + <allow_any>no</allow_any> + <allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive> + <allow_active>auth_admin_keep</allow_active> + </defaults> + <annotate key="org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.path">/usr/bin/gnome-logs</annotate> + <annotate key="org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.allow_gui">TRUE</annotate> + </action> + +</policyconfig> diff -Nru gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/patches/02-elevate-privileges.patch gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/patches/02-elevate-privileges.patch --- gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/patches/02-elevate-privileges.patch 1970-01-01 01:00:00.000000000 +0100 +++ gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/patches/02-elevate-privileges.patch 2017-07-21 23:38:19.000000000 +0200 @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +--- a/data/org.gnome.Logs.desktop.in ++++ b/data/org.gnome.Logs.desktop.in +@@ -6,8 +6,8 @@ + _Keywords=log;journal;debug;error; + Type=Application + Categories=GTK;GNOME;System;Monitor;Utility;X-GNOME-Utilities; +-Exec=gnome-logs ++Exec=gnome-logs-pkexec + Icon=gnome-logs + Terminal=false + StartupNotify=true +-DBusActivatable=true ++DBusActivatable=false diff -Nru gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/patches/series gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/patches/series --- gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/patches/series 2017-02-05 20:57:42.000000000 +0100 +++ gnome-logs-3.22.1/debian/patches/series 2017-07-21 23:38:19.000000000 +0200 @@ -1 +1,2 @@ 01-no-boot-ids.patch +02-elevate-privileges.patch