How to use synaptic-pkexec?

Question

I assume this (synaptic-pkexec) was installed with a recent upgrade? The question is, how do i use it?

When i run it, i'm presented with a banner:

==== AUTHENTICATING FOR com.ubuntu.pkexec.synaptic ===

(in red) and then:

Authentication is required to run the Synaptic Package Manager
Multiple identities can be used for authentication:

and then a numbered list of user's names, several ","s (i assume missing GECOS information) and then the username.

If i select the number for me, i get a password prompt. Enter password and then:

polkit-agent-helper-1: error response to PolicyKit daemon: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1.Error.Failed: No session for cookie
==== AUTHENTICATION FAILED ===
Error executing command as another user: Not authorized

This incident has been reported.

(to whom?)

How do i configure polkit-agent-helper-1 (or something else?) to "authorize [sic]" myself?
And i'd like to run it as non-root as well.
I'll be sticking with regular synaptic for now...

Possible duplicate of Why don't gksu/gksudo or launching a graphical application with sudo work with Wayland? — N0rbert, Dec 03 '17 at 15:41
synaptic-pkexec is how the "regular" synaptic has been run for quite some time. So your issues are local & not from pkexec per se. (- You can always run synaptic without root however package removal or install will not be possible. How about mentioning what release of Ubuntu or *buntu you are using.. — doug, Dec 03 '17 at 15:41
@N0rbert It doesn't say anywhere in the question that the OP is using Wayland or 17.10. — karel, Dec 03 '17 at 15:51
Dear OP could you please shade more light on your problem? What actions did you perform (write complete steps to reproduce)? On which Ubuntu version? Is it related to known bug with launching pkexec'ed application on Wayland? Please update your question with output of cat /etc/lsb-release, apt-cache policy synaptic, id. — N0rbert, Dec 03 '17 at 16:05

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 03 '17 at 16:38

Finding out about synaptic-pkexec is easy:

w3@aardvark:~(1)$ locate synaptic-pkexec
/usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
w3@aardvark:~(0)$ dpkg -S /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
synaptic: /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
w3@aardvark:~(0)$ dpkg -L synaptic | grep -E 'pkexec|man/|READ|doc'
/usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
/usr/share/man/pt_BR
/usr/share/man/pt_BR/man8
/usr/share/man/pt_BR/man8/synaptic.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8
/usr/share/man/man8/synaptic.8.gz
/usr/share/man/tr
/usr/share/man/tr/man8
/usr/share/man/tr/man8/synaptic.8.gz
/usr/share/man/fr
/usr/share/man/fr/man8
/usr/share/man/fr/man8/synaptic.8.gz
/usr/share/man/es
/usr/share/man/es/man8
/usr/share/man/es/man8/synaptic.8.gz
/usr/share/polkit-1/actions/com.ubuntu.pkexec.synaptic.policy
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/synaptic
/usr/share/doc/synaptic/copyright
/usr/share/doc/synaptic/README.tasks
/usr/share/doc/synaptic/NEWS.gz
/usr/share/doc/synaptic/README.Debian
/usr/share/doc/synaptic/README.supported
/usr/share/doc/synaptic/TODO.gz
/usr/share/doc/synaptic/README
/usr/share/doc/synaptic/NEWS.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/synaptic/changelog.gz
w3@aardvark:~(0)$ file /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
/usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec: POSIX shell script, ASCII text executable

Lots of stuff for you to read, including /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec: POSIX shell script, ASCII text executable, which is short enough to include here:

#!/bin/sh
pkexec "/usr/sbin/synaptic" "$@"

But one question I have: Why, oh why, would you use a tool-in-a-box that you don't understand?

However, on further reading of your poorly formatted Q, I surmise that you are trying to run synaptic from a non-GUI session. synaptic is a GUI tool. apt, apt-get, aptitude are command line tools for packages.

A lot of useless information. Not quite obvious, but I guess the OP wants synaptic and pkexec to present GUI sudo and receives console menu instead which does not work for them. — Konstantin Pelepelin, Sep 07 '21 at 15:51

How to use synaptic-pkexec?

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