os.getlogin() Error

[Wildman]

On Fri, 05 May 2017 07:46:32 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:

> On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 6:03 AM, Wildman via Python-list
> <python-list at python.org> wrote:
>> I will try to explain...
>> The program reports system information based on the user's name.
>> Things such as passwd, groups and shadow info.  However, the
>> program must have elevated privileges to get the shadow info so
>> the program has the option to 'restart as root' so the shadow
>> information will be obtainable.
>>
>> If the program is restarting as root, the work-arounds report
>> the user as 'root'.  Then the system information for passwd,
>> groups and shadow will be reported for 'root' and not the
>> user that ran the program.  The actual user name that ran
>> the program is needed for the program to report correct
>> information.
>>
>> It seems that only os.getlogin() reports the true user name no
>> matter if the program is run as a normal user or restarted as
>> root.
>>
>> Is there a way to get the actual user name or is there a fix
>> or a better work-around for the os.getlogin() function?
> 
> That depends on exactly how the program "restarts as root". One very
> common way to do this is to invoke itself through sudo(1). If that's
> how you're flipping yourself to root, check os.environ["SUDO_USER"] or
> os.environ["SUDO_UID"], both of which will be set by sudo before it
> invokes the program.
> 
> ChrisA

I am using pkexec to restart so $SUDO_USER is not set.  For some
reason sudo, su and su-to-root will freeze the first instance of
the program and not let it close until the second instance closes.
I have tried every method I can find to launch them and pkexec
is the only one that works correctly.

Thanks for the reply.

-- 
<Wildman> GNU/Linux user #557453
The cow died so I don't need your bull!