I would recommend that if you don't use polkit and you don't use a
setuid binary, that you use sudo. sudo accepts the `-A` flag or the
`SUDO_ASKPASS` environment variable to specify a graphical program to
tell sudo the password; examples of programs that do this are
`ssh-askpass` <https://packages.debian.org/unstable/ssh-askpass>,
`gnome-ssh-askpass` <https://packages.debian.org/sid/ssh-askpass-gnome>,
`ksshaskpass` <https://invent.kde.org/plasma/ksshaskpass>, and
`lxqt-openssh-askpass` <https://github.com/lxqt/lxqt-openssh-askpass>.
If you don't want to write an askpass binary using GNUstep-GUI, I'd
recommend that you depend on `gnome-ssh-askpass` since almost all
graphical users will have Gtk installed and have a desktop environment
which properly handles Gtk applications (the desktop environments
normally do /not/ set `SUDO_ASKPASS` or `SSH_ASKPASS`; you'll need to
set it yourself when you call `sudo`).
On 2/2/25 16:55, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
Hi James,
James Carthew wrote:
I want a way to escalate the privileges of my application to root
level, but only for the specific function. I also only want the user
to authenticate once and then have their escalated privilege exist
until they close the plugin. Similar to the unlock padlock button in
OSX's SystemPreferences.app. Does anyone know howto implement this?
no.. I have never found a portable way of doing this that would doing
this that would work at least on Linux and BSDs.
I even wonder if Mac offers an API to do it that we should reimplement.
lacking that, i never added certain features to SystemPreferences
myself wanting it to remain portable.
I think of a couple of approaches. The most portable would be to
interact somehow with sudo, being it either present in base system or
available as a package on most systems I can think of.
Another question is how it actually works on Apple. On my mac I am
both a user and an admin user, so it looks I am authenticating myself
essentially. But in case I were Joe and admin were Bob, would I be
entering Joe's or Bob's password?
Riccardo
