Hacker News Reader

> polkit, the systemd replacement of sudo

I honestly do not understand how you can feel comfortable making judgement calls about projects when you cannot even accurately state their function.

View on HN

"Polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is a component for controlling system-wide privileges in Unix-like operating systems."

Calling it the sudo for UIs seems reasonable. It lets you manage the permission level of the UI you're using.

Does it do something else?

Youre being too generous. GP's statement was,

"Did you know that polkit, the systemd replacement of sudo,"

He calls it a replacement of sudo which is is definitely not.

Uh, so, systemd don't recommend to use `sudo systemctl start blah`. Their idea is to use `systemctl start blah` and have polkit handle the authentication. Not sure what's unclear here.

The difference is that with `sudo systemctl ...` systemctl is run as root, but with PolicyKit only parts are. And if I understand it correctly PolicyKit allows more fine grained control over permissions than sudo.

Well, since this was the recommendation from one of the polkit contributors... I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Perhaps you can enlighten me with your wisdom.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com