Kate doesn't ask for privileged escalation when editing a file owned by root

[Superfly-Johnson]

Describe the bug

When editing a file (for instance configuration.nix) with KDE's text editor Kate, the editor would ask for root password when saving the file by using kauth. On NixOS however, Kate simply complains that the user isn't the owner of the file and refuses to overwrite it.

Steps To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. install Kate (nix-env -i kate)
2. Open a configuration file in /etc/
3. Attempt saving it. Kate will simply complain the user doesn't own the file instead of asking for escalation.

Expected behavior

On other distros, Kate would ask for root password before saving the file.

Additional context

Nix 22.05

Notify maintainers

Metadata

Please run nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m" and paste the result.

[user@system:~]$ nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
output here

[Superfly-Johnson]

Sorry for the lack of more details I am currently on mobile

[cfitz25]

I am having the same issue and cant seem to get around it. I saw that partition-manager that had a similar issue of not asking for permission for me which worked after enabling it as a program.

nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
this path will be fetched (0.06 MiB download, 0.30 MiB unpacked):
  /nix/store/n564hnvmn4589d6a6q9aylznk7nkvaky-bash-interactive-5.1-p16-dev
copying path '/nix/store/n564hnvmn4589d6a6q9aylznk7nkvaky-bash-interactive-5.1-p16-dev' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'...
 - system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 5.15.43, NixOS, 22.05 (Quokka), 22.05.866.1f8d88087a3`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.8.1`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos`

[praduca]

I just confirmed that this is not exclusive from kate, it is also ocurring when trying to open the same file with kwrite. Don't know if this is because they are basically the same soft, or if it is something related to other kde applications

[sneakygecko]

You can run kate using sudoedit

In your /etc/nioxos/configuration.nix add the following:

  environment.sessionVariables = {
   SUDO_EDITOR= "/run/current-system/sw/bin/kate";
  };

and then in a terminal: sudoedit /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

It will show the filename at the to with some random characters in it and the location will /var/tmp/configurationXXXXXXXX.nix but when you save it, it will update the file correctly.

[bobajeff]

I can confirm this bug is still present.

I suspect nix isn't building ktexteditor with ENABLE_KAUTH on. Which enables KAuth integration. Could @tteggel or @nyanloutre confirm this?

see: https://github.com/KDE/ktexteditor/blob/master/CMakeLists.txt#L43

[JonathanBrouwer]

From looking at the CMakeLists, ENABLE_KAUTH should be on if NOT WIN32.

I'm also encountering this bug and tried figuring out what is causing this but haven't made any progress yet.

Running KDE 6 on nix unstable

[JonathanBrouwer]

I figured out the problem, I had to add kdePackages.ktexteditor to my list of system packages. I feel like this should've been enabled by default

[praduca]

this doesnt work on gnome tried adding kdepackages.kauth but also not work i'm using gnome on nixos unstable