PKCHECK(1)                                                   pkcheck                                                  PKCHECK(1)



NAME
       pkcheck - Check whether a process is authorized

SYNOPSIS
       pkcheck [--version] [--help]

       pkcheck --action-id action {--process { pid | pid,pid-start-time } | --system-bus-name busname}
               [--allow-user-interaction] [--enable-internal-agent] [--detail key value...]

DESCRIPTION
       pkcheck is used to check whether a process, specified by either --process or --system-bus-name, is authorized for action.
       The --detail option can be used zero or more times to pass details about action. If --allow-user-interaction is passed,
       pkcheck blocks while waiting for authentication.

       This command is a simple wrapper around the PolicyKit D-Bus interface; see the D-Bus interface documentation for details.

RETURN VALUE
       If the specified process is authorized, pkcheck exits with a return value of 0. If the authorization result contains any
       details, these are printed on standard output as key/value pairs using environment style reporting, e.g. first the key
       followed by a an equal sign, then the value followed by a newline.

           KEY1=VALUE1
           KEY2=VALUE2
           KEY3=VALUE3
           ...

       Octects that are not in [a-zA-Z0-9_] are escaped using octal codes prefixed with \. For example, the UTF-8 string fol,
       will be printed as f\303\270l\54\344\275\240\345\245\275.

       If the specificied process is not authorized, pkcheck exits with a return value of 1 and a diagnostic message is printed
       on standard error. Details are printed on standard output.

       If the specificied process is not authorized because no suitable authentication agent is available or if the
       --allow-user-interaction wasn't passed, pkcheck exits with a return value of 2 and a diagnostic message is printed on
       standard error. Details are printed on standard output.

       If an error occured while checking for authorization, pkcheck exits with a return value of 127 with a diagnostic message
       printed on standard error.

       If one or more of the options passed are malformed, pkcheck exits with a return value of 126. If stdin is a tty, then
       this manual page is also shown.

NOTES
       Since process identifiers can be recycled, the caller should always use pid,pid-start-time to specify the process to
       check for authorization when using the --process option. The value of pid-start-time can be determined by consulting e.g.
       the proc(5) file system depending on the operating system. If only pid is passed to the --process option, then pkcheck
       will look up the start time itself but note that this may be racy.

AUTHENTICATION AGENT
       pkcheck, like any other PolicyKit application, will use the authentication agent registered for the process in question.
       However, if no authentication agent is available, then pkcheck can register its own textual authentication agent if the
       option --enable-internal-agent is passed.

AUTHOR
       Written by David Zeuthen davidzATredhat.com with a lot of help from many others.

BUGS
       Please send bug reports to either the distribution or the polkit-devel mailing list, see the link
       http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/polkit-devel on how to subscribe.

SEE ALSO
       polkit(8), pkaction(1), pkexec(1)



polkit                                                      May 2009                                                  PKCHECK(1)