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    [PLASMA 5] Question about Discover updates on multi-user system

    OK so I'm a bit stumped here, maybe someone can help. With Plasma's move to use Discover as the update engine for system updates, the job of reminding Users to keep their systems up to date has been made easier and more reliable. I'm all for it, personally. But I have hit a wall whereby I'm hoping someone can help: I have a spare laptop with Neon on it that my girlfriend's kids (and occasionally the GF herself) use. There's one Admin account on the machine. However, Discover runs on all user's instances of Plasma.

    The issue arises when a normal (non-admin) user is using their machine, and get a nag about an available update(s). If a user clicks on the update, of course they get prompted for their password. But because they are not an Admin (or in the 'Sudoers' group), Discover will permanently hang awaiting authentication, with no discernible way out of the situation. I'm looking at a few ways around this, but in the short term I'm looking for a down-and-dirty easy solution. Long term, I'd like to see Discover simply time-out if an admin password isn't entered in a reasonable amount of time and give a message about needing Admin rights to install software or update a system. Another possibility would be for a user to never be notified about updates that they could never authorize to be installed anyway.

    I think, in the past, this issue could be cleanly handled easier, since the update mechanism was a separate application package from the software center / package manager (without specifically requesting it within the package manager itself), but now that it's fully-wrapped in Discover it seems less intuitive as to how this can be done outside of being built into the functionality of the Discover application itself. Also, I do not want to remove Discover from view of each user, since they are young and I like to encourage exploration of what's available to them, even if someone else ultimately has to install it for them. Ideas welcome.
    Last edited by dequire; Feb 14, 2018, 10:54 AM.
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    #2
    Sounds like a bug to me. Discover should fail with incorrect authentication. Have you filed on this yet?

    I think the ultimate behavior should be, when notifying a user who is not a member of the admin and sudo groups, simply notify that updates may be required and not prompt for a password at all.

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