ConsoleKit
| External resources |
ConsoleKit is a framework for defining and tracking users, login sessions, and seats.
Contents |
Description
ConsoleKit's function is to support in multiuser setups. It also works for a single user, but offers no benefit compared to existing methods.
ConsoleKit is a D-Bus daemon and creates for each PAM session an own session. All applications in that session can make use of the permissions granted to this sessions. ConsoleKit determine, if the session is local (created by a local user in contrast to users logged in over the network) and if the session is active (means, it's the most recent session). Based on this distinction, ConsoleKit assigns device file permissions (e.g. for audio, video and more) to the session. Also other software like polkit make use of this distinction.
Fast user switching is a feature powered by ConsoleKit. When switching device file permissions get changed to the new active user and appliciations in the old session get notified, so they can revoke grants based on ConsoleKit informations.
ConsoleKit support in shutdown/reboot handling, so that only the local, active user can shutdown or reboot the system.
The planned multiseat feature is not fully implemented. At the moment all local sessions are in Seat1, all other sessions are in seat2.
Installation
Prerequisites
ConsoleKit uses D-Bus, so set it up first.
Kernel
You need to activate the following kernel options:
General setup --->
[*] Auditing support
[*] Enable system-call auditing support
Software
Portage knows the global USE flag consolekit for enabling support for ConsoleKit in other packages. Enabling this USE flag will pull in sys-auth/consolekit automatically (default for desktop profiles):
USE="... consolekit ..."
The USE flags of consolekit are:
| USE flag | Default | Recommended | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| acl | Yes | Adds support for Access Control Lists | |
| debug | No | Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/qa/backtraces.xml | |
| doc | No | Adds extra documentation (API, Javadoc, etc). It is recommended to enable per package instead of globally | |
| pam | Yes | Adds support for PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) - DANGEROUS to arbitrarily flip | |
| policykit | Yes | Use the PolicyKit framework (sys-auth/polkit) to get authorization for suspend/shutdown. | |
| selinux | No | !!internal use only!! Security Enhanced Linux support, this must be set by the selinux profile or breakage will occur | |
| test | No | Workaround to pull in packages needed to run with FEATURES=test. Portage-2.1.2 handles this internally, so don't set it in make.conf/package.use anymore |
After setting this you want to update your system so the changes take effect:
root # emerge --ask --changed-use --deep @worldConfiguration
Boot service
You can now start ConsoleKit:
root # /etc/init.d/consolekit startTo start ConsoleKit at boot time, add it your default runlevel (although it often also get started by ConsoleKit depending services):
root # rc-update add consolekit defaultConsoleKit integration for startx
If you want to start the X-server manually with startx (instead of using a display manager), you have to create the ConsoleKit session yourself. Therefor create the following .xinitrc for your user:
exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session YOUR_COMMAND
YOUR_COMMAND needs to be replaced by a window manager or a single application.
Usage
- ck-list-sessions: Shows all sessions and their details. For a local, active users active and is-local should be TRUE.
Troubleshooting
- Gentoo bugtracker: known bugs
- ck-history --log: Shows the logged messages.
- The ConsoleKit init.d script /etc/init.d/consolekit uses the
-qparameter to supress debug messages. Remove this parameter and restart the service to get more messages. Use also the parameter--debugto get even more messages. - Consolekit communicates over D-Bus, so also see the D-Bus "Troubleshooting" section.
