[Bug 982032] Re: package-data-downloader user.d hook relies on gksudo, not present on Kubuntu

[Steve Langasek]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 05:44:17PM -0000, Robert Simmons wrote:

> I would rather not install this simply to get rid of this annoying popup
> since it wants to install all of the following packages as well:

This bug is not about whether or not a popup is shown, it's about the button
on the popup not working correctly.  The button may be working correctly and
still fail to download the files due to whatever network configuration issue
prevented them from being downloaded in the first place.

You will need to look at your logs and see why your machine can't reach the
server.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to update-notifier in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/982032

Title:
  package-data-downloader user.d hook relies on gksudo, not present on
  Kubuntu

Status in “update-notifier” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “update-notifier” source package in Precise:
  Fix Released
Status in “update-notifier” source package in Quantal:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  Use of gksudo in the update-notifier hook means that the "Run this action" command fails on a Kubuntu system; so any time a data download fails, Kubuntu users are presented with a message about it but given nothing that helps them fix the problem.

  [Test Case]
  1. On Kubuntu, run sudo cp /usr/share/update-notifier/package-data-downloads-failed /var/lib/update-notifier/user.d/
  2. On the resulting dialog, click on 'Run this action'
  3. Verify that the action gives an error about gksudo
  4. Upgrade to the update-notifier-common package in precise-proposed
  5. Repeat steps 1 and 2
  6. Confirm that you are prompted for a password and that the command runs without error.
  7. On a separate Ubuntu install, install the update-notifier-common package from precise-proposed
  8. Repeat steps 5 and 6

  [Regression potential]
  The package uploaded to precise-proposed does not add a dependency on policykit-1 (since it did not have one on gksudo).  So if gksudo was installed on the user's system, but policykit-1 is not, this will cause the command to fail where before it succeeded.  It's possible this should be addressed by adding a dependency.
  The pkexec command could also fail where gksudo did not.  I can't think of any reason why this would be.

  The package-data-downloader update-notifier hook has an action that
  requires root privileges.  In the interest in expedience, this button
  uses gksudo in precise; but gksudo is not included in Kubuntu.

  This needs to be fixed to either use policykit + a dbus service (which
  may be too heavyweight for this despite being the preferred security
  model?), or to use use something like ubiquity's "get root any way I
  can" wrapper.

  Neither of these fixes is going to make it for precise .0, however.
  This is inconvenient, but the dialog is only presented in case of a
  download failure anyway.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/982032/+subscriptions