Features/KDE PolicyKitOneQt

= KDE - PolicyKitOneQt Support =

Summary
This feature adds PolicyKit One support to Qt/KDE applications and the KDE desktop. That means new polkit-1-qt library, KAuth PK-1 backend and KDE Authentication Agent with Policy Kit one tools.

Owner

 * Name: Jaroslav Řezník & KDE SIG
 * email: jreznik@redhat.com

Current status

 * Targeted release: Fedora 13
 * Last updated: 2010-01-28
 * Percentage of completion: 100%

Detailed status

Detailed Description
One of Fedora 12 Feature was Policy Kit One. It became part of Fedora and deprecated old Policy Kit. We need proper support in Qt and KDE applications. We'd like to offer Qt like API (instead pure DBUS interface and GLib library) to access PolicyKit One features. KDE 4.4 feature is new authorization system KAuth. To support it, we need Policy Kit One backend. In Fedora 12 KDE Desktop Edition uses Gnome Authentication Agent. We need native KDE authentication agent. This feature is supposed to become part of new KDE release (4.4) and it would help wide adoption of PolicyKit One along KDE distributions.

Benefit to Fedora
Fedora now uses Policy Kit One as default authentication mechanism. But KDE supports only old Policy Kit, already depracated in Fedora, by now. With Policy Kit One support Fedora KDE users/developers can use it in own Qt/KDE applications with nicer Qt API. Authentication Agent dialog would match rest of desktop environment (Gnome one would be replaced). KDE upstream would benefit from this feature too - means better adoption of this Fedora in-house project.

Scope
Polkit-1-qt has to be finished and released. Based on this library KDE Authentication Agent could be prepared and new KDE authentication system can be ported to use it.

It affects only KDE desktop environment.

polkit-qt-1
There's an example application shipped with this library. It's also covered by automatical tests. As it's uses as backend for KAuth, test KAuth based applications - mostly system settings modules.


 * 1) run systemsettings
 * 2) try to change date/time

KDE Authentication Agent
See PolkitKdeTestPlan.

User Experience

 * KDE users get authentication agent dialog that matches theirs environment.
 * Working systemsettings modules which needs root privileges.

Dependencies
Provides KAuth backend for kdelibs that are under KDE SIG control.

Contingency Plan
As we don't ship polkit-qt in F12 (as we don't have PK1 support) nothing happens but it's going to block KDE 4.4. So this is MUST HAVE feature.

Documentation

 * Documentation is part of source codes (Doxygen) and can be found at http://api.kde.org/.


 * PolkitQt-1 API docs

Release Notes

 * This release of Fedora KDE Desktop Edition brings native Qt/KDE support for PolicyKit 1. It consists of PolkitQt-1 libraries, the KAuth backend for PolicyKit 1 (the new KDE Platform authorization framework) and native KDE Authentication Agent. As extension you can find unique System Settings configuration module for PolicyKit 1.

Comments and Discussion

 * See Talk:Features/KDE_PolicyKitOneQt