Bug#961551: partitionmanager: Does not start - "Session bus not found"

[scott...@aol.com]

Package: partitionmanager
Version: 4.1.0-1
Severity: important

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
From: Scott Jacobs <scott...@aol.com>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <sub...@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: partitionmanager: Does not start - "Session bus not found"
Bcc: Scott Jacobs <scott...@aol.com>
Message-ID: <159044435347.106308.11000027544499156350.reportbug@ASUS-Prime-B350M-A-CSM>
X-Mailer: reportbug 7.6.0
Date: Mon, 25 May 2020 18:05:53 -0400
X-Debbugs-Cc: scott...@aol.com

Dear Maintainer,

I attempted to run PartitionManager today, and it did not start:

$ sudo partitionmanager
[sudo] password for scott:
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-root'
"Session bus not found\nTo circumvent this problem try the following command
(with Linux and bash)\nexport $(dbus-launch)"

I have successfully run this in the past (after adding "lxqt-sudo " before the
command on the .desktop file's "exec" line - otherwise, nothing happens...)
but today, nothing happened. When I started it in the terminal, I got the
above.

I attempted to follow the suggestion ("export $(dbus-launch)"), but the command
was unknown.
It is apparently a file provided by dbus-x11, whose description states:
"This package contains the dbus-launch utility which is necessary for packages
using a D-Bus session bus."

I have dbus, but not dbus-x11.
As I say, I have successfully launched partitionmanager in the past, and have
not removed dbus-x11.

I don't use it often - mostly to verify my main disk's partition layout.
I note that around mid April, when I did a "sudo apt-get upgrade"
partitionmanager was "held back", and I subsequently installed it (it is the
newest version for testing)

I guess something changed.

I note that the environment variable
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus is defined (as is
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/1000 - which even before, when I could run it, it
claimed was undefined).




-- System Information:
Debian Release: bullseye/sid
APT prefers testing-debug
APT policy: (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 5.6.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_WARN, TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE= (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages partitionmanager depends on:
ii kio 5.62.1-2+b1
ii libc6 2.29-9
ii libkf5configcore5 5.62.0-1+b1
ii libkf5configgui5 5.62.0-1+b1
ii libkf5configwidgets5 5.62.0-1+b1
ii libkf5coreaddons5 5.62.0-1
ii libkf5crash5 5.62.0-1+b1
ii libkf5dbusaddons5 5.62.0-1
ii libkf5i18n5 5.62.0-1
ii libkf5iconthemes5 5.62.0-1+b1
ii libkf5jobwidgets5 5.62.0-1+b1
ii libkf5kiocore5 5.62.1-2+b1
ii libkf5kiowidgets5 5.62.1-2+b1
ii libkf5widgetsaddons5 5.62.0-1+b1
ii libkf5xmlgui5 5.62.0-1+b1
ii libkpmcore9 4.1.0-2
ii libqt5core5a 5.12.5+dfsg-10
ii libqt5gui5 5.12.5+dfsg-10
ii libqt5widgets5 5.12.5+dfsg-10
ii libstdc++6 10.1.0-2

partitionmanager recommends no packages.

Versions of packages partitionmanager suggests:
ii btrfs-progs 5.6-1
ii dosfstools 4.1-2
pn hfsplus <none>
pn hfsutils <none>
pn jfsutils <none>
ii ntfs-3g 1:2017.3.23AR.3-3
pn reiser4progs <none>
pn reiserfsprogs <none>
pn xfsprogs <none>

-- no debconf information

[Andrius Štikonas]

I think this bug is happening because you run it with sudo.
You shouldn't run graphical applications with sudo as root.
partitionmanager is designed to be run by non-root user.

[Diederik de Haas]

On Tuesday, 25 January 2022 21:56:06 CET scott...@aol.com wrote:
> I just now ran partitionmanager from the terminal, and as usual, got no info
> in the displayed window.
>
> Here is the terminal output:
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> scott@ASUS-Prime-B350MA:~$ partitionmanager
> Could not load plugin for core backend "" : "The shared library was not
> found." Loaded backend plugin: "pmsfdiskbackendplugin"

At this point you should've gotten a prompt by PolicyKit (KDE Agent) for your
(user) password and after that, you should've seen:
> "Using backend plugin: pmsfdiskbackendplugin (1)"

And after that you should see your partitions loaded in the GUI.

So maybe you're missing a required program? I don't know which, but check
whether you have 'udisks2' and/or 'policykit-1' installed.

Cheers,
Diederik

BTW: it looks like it's not properly responding to the 'Cancel' button and a
failed 'login' attempt brings back the password dialog. Endlessly AFAICT.
After (way?) more then 5 attempts for each, the only way out appears to be to
provide the correct password.
I'd say that's a bug too, but a different one.

[Aurélien COUDERC]

Le 1 février 2022 02:49:24 GMT+01:00, scott...@aol.com a écrit :
>I am curious about something...
>
>I thought the rationale of using PolicyKit over sudo was, that with sudo, the entire time an app was running,
>it was with administrative rights, thus there was a longer time for someone to try and take over in some way...

The main idea is not to have privileges for a shorter time but to do *less* as a privileged user.
And the first reason to do the change is so that the *UI* doesn't need to run as root which has been discouraged for a long time because it offers a huge attack surface.

I've not looked at the code but I guess partition manager may need root for scanning the disks and partitions, thus asking right away.
Or just for simplicity and not to have to do the polkit transaction from various places in the code.