On 17.04.2019 8:51, Andy Smith wrote: > Hi, > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 01:15:07PM +0500, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote: >> On 16.04.2019 12:08, Andy Smith wrote: >>> I don't have seamonkey installed so haven't tried myself, but does >>> it even run as root? >>> >> I don't use SeaMonkey either, but I'm pretty sure it does not need root >> privileges to run. :) > My point is that the OP is asking why, when they click a link from > within a GUI app that is running as root (synaptic), the wrong > browser is launched. So what I am asking is, once the correct > browser is set up via alternatives, isn't it going to launch > seamonkey as root? I was pretty sure it isn't gonna run browser as root. Because it is pretty silly mistake from a developer standpoint. Let's double check: $ sudo ps aux | egrep "x-www-browser|synaptic" amak 2344 0.0 0.0 4280 744 ? S 10:08 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec root 2345 0.6 0.8 557104 142048 ? Sl 10:08 0:02 /usr/sbin/synaptic amak 2378 1.1 1.4 2121228 244576 ? Sl 10:09 0:03 /usr/bin/x-www-browser http://0install.net/
It looks like Synaptic starts with user privileges as a wrapper and PolicyKit asks for root privileges to spawn actual synaptic process. So Synaptic's UI and every process (e.g. x-www-browser) it spawns later will run with user privileges. Special actions, like package installation or removal, will be forwarded to real synaptic process which is running as root. > > Further implication being, it is good to learn about the > alternatives system, but maybe not a great idea to solve this > problem this way. There is no other sane way, I think. Synaptic will execute "x-www-browser <URL>" so this symlink has to point to actual browser and to manage those symlinks in a convenient and controllable way, you should use "update-alternatives". Of course, you can do the same thing by hand, but then you have to remember and keep track of all changes to your "/bin", "/usr/bin", etc, so you won't break anything later. -- With kindest regards, Alexander. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀
