New authorization required for mundane activities

[Tom H]

On Sun, Sep 27, 2015 at 9:02 PM, MR ZenWiz <mrzenwiz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Starting today, with whatever update came in since Friday, every time
> I plug in a flash drive, I get a root authorization window popup
> requesting I input my admin access password to mount the drive.
>
> This appears to come from org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount,
> except that that is (obviously) not a valid URL, nor is it just
> backwards..
>
> IMNSHO, it's bad enough I have to run thunar non-stop (I almost never
> actually use it) to have the system recognize my removable drives when
> I plug them in. That is still necessary (the system doesn't see the
> drive or acknowledge it unless I do). This is another step in the
> wrong direction.
>
> Where do I file a bug for this wonderful new feature?

The more-or-less-reverse URL comes from polkit. From my 15.10 laptop:

# pkaction | grep filesystem-mount
org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount
org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-other-seat
org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-system

# pkaction --verbose --action-id org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount
org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount:
  description:       Mount a filesystem
  message:           Authentication is required to mount the filesystem
  vendor:            The udisks Project
  vendor_url:        http://udisks.freedesktop.org/
  icon:              drive-removable-media
  implicit any:      auth_admin
  implicit inactive: auth_admin
  implicit active:   yes

# pkaction --verbose --action-id
org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-other-seat
org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-other-seat:
  description:       Mount a filesystem from a device plugged into another seat
  message:           Authentication is required to mount the filesystem
  vendor:            The udisks Project
  vendor_url:        http://udisks.freedesktop.org/
  icon:              drive-removable-media
  implicit any:      auth_admin
  implicit inactive: auth_admin
  implicit active:   auth_admin_keep

# pkaction --verbose --action-id org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-system
org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-system:
  description:       Mount a filesystem on a system device
  message:           Authentication is required to mount the filesystem
  vendor:            The udisks Project
  vendor_url:        http://udisks.freedesktop.org/
  icon:              drive-removable-media
  implicit any:      auth_admin
  implicit inactive: auth_admin
  implicit active:   auth_admin_keep

These come from:

# grep filesystem-mount
/usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.udisks2.policy
  <action id="org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount">
  <action id="org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-system">
  <action id="org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount-other-seat">

I never use flash drives but
"org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount" should allow me to mount
one without having to supply a password. Are your polkit settings
different?

If you need to override your settings, you can do so via "/etc/polkit-1/".