How To Install polkitd on Ubuntu

Posted on April 1, 2023 (Last modified on May 20, 2023 )

3 minutes • 458 words

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install polkitd on Ubuntu.

What is `polkitd`

polkitd is:

PolicyKit is an application-level toolkit for defining and handling the policy that allows unprivileged processes to speak to privileged processes.

It is a framework for centralizing the decision making process with respect to granting access to privileged operations for unprivileged (desktop) applications.

In a typical use of polkit, an unprivileged application such as gnome-disks sends requests via D-Bus or other inter-process communication mechanisms to a privileged system service such as udisks, which asks polkitd for permission to process those requests. This allows the application to carry out privileged tasks without making use of setuid, which avoids several common sources of security vulnerabilities.

This package provides the polkitd D-Bus service and supporting programs. The pkexec program is not included, and can be found in the pkexec package.

There are three methods to install polkitd on Ubuntu. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install polkitd Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install polkitd using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install polkitd

Install polkitd Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install polkitd using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install polkitd

Install polkitd Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install polkitd using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install polkitd

How To Uninstall polkitd on Ubuntu

To uninstall only the polkitd package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove polkitd

Uninstall polkitd And Its Dependencies

To uninstall polkitd and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove polkitd

Remove polkitd Configurations and Data

To remove polkitd configuration and data from Ubuntu we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge polkitd

Remove polkitd configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove polkitd configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge polkitd

Dependencies

polkitd have the following dependencies:

References

polkitd website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install polkitd package on Ubuntu using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.