PKTTYAGENT(1) pkttyagent PKTTYAGENT(1)

.SH "NAME" pkttyagent - Textual authentication helper

.SH "SYNOPSIS"

.HP 264u

**pkttyagent**  
\[**--version**]  
\[**--help**]

.HP 264u

**pkttyagent**

[  
| **--process** { | *pid* | *pid,pid-start-time* }  
| **--system-bus-name** *busname*  
]

[  
| **--notify-fd** *fd*  
]

[  
| **--fallback**  
]

.SH "DESCRIPTION"

.PP **pkttyagent** is used to start a textual authentication agent for the subject specified by either **--process** or **--system-bus-name**. If neither of these options are given, the parent process is used.

.PP To get notified when the authentication agent has been registered either listen to the Changed D-Bus signal or use **--notify-fd** to pass the number of a file descriptor that has been passed to the program. This file descriptor will then be closed when the authentication agent has been successfully registered.

.PP If **--fallback** is used, the textual authentication agent will not replace an existing authentication agent.

.SH "RETURN VALUE"

.PP If the authentication agent could not be registered, **pkttyagent** exits with an exit code of 127. Diagnostic messages are printed on standard error.

.PP If one or more of the options passed are malformed, **pkttyagent** exits with an exit code of 126. If stdin is a tty, then this manual page is also shown.

.PP If the authentication agent was successfully registered, **pkttyagent** will keep running, interacting with the user as needed. When its services are no longer needed, the process can be killed.

.SH "NOTES"

.PP Since process identifiers can be recycled, the caller should always use *pid,pid-start-time* when using the **--process** option. The value of *pid-start-time* can be determined by consulting e.g. the [**proc**(5)](/man/os/polkit/proc.5) file system depending on the operating system. If only *pid* is passed to the **--process** option, then **pkttyagent** will look up the start time itself but note that this may be racy.

.SH "AUTHOR"

.PP Written by David Zeuthen <davidz@redhat.com> with a lot of help from many others.

.SH "BUGS"

.PP Please send bug reports to either the distribution or the polkit-devel mailing list, see **https://github.com/polkit-org/polkit#bugs-and-development**.

.SH "SEE ALSO"

.PP [**polkit**(8)](/man/os/polkit/polkit.8), [**polkitd**(8)](/man/os/polkit/polkitd.8), [**pkaction**(1)](/man/os/polkit/pkaction.1), [**pkcheck**(1)](/man/os/polkit/pkcheck.1), [**pkexec**(1)](/man/os/polkit/pkexec.1)

May 2009 polkit

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Document: pkttyagent(1) from polkit 128-r0 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/polkit-org/polkit.git