How can non-admin users connect to Wi-Fi networks?

Question

I'm trying to configure PolicyKit so that other users are allowed to configure Wi-Fi connections, but my changes don't seem to bring any results at all.

When a non-admin user tries to connect to a new Wi-Fi, I get the System policy prevents modification of network settings for all users box. It asks for the admin user's password.

Ok - that one goes via PolicyKit, so I thought I'll just change the configuration for action org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.settings.modify.system. I created a file /etc/polkit-1/localauthority.conf.d/52-wifi-management.conf with content:

[Wifi management]
Identity=unix-group:netdev
Action=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.*
ResultAny=no
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=yes

and added the user to the netdev group.

But that didn't make any difference. There also doesn't seem to be much possibility for debugging the auth process. What's going wrong? How do I make it work as I expect?

Solution

Your configuration is correct, but local policy files should be placed inside /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/ and the file extension must be .pkla.

To solve your problem:

sudo mv /etc/polkit-1/localauthority.conf.d/52-wifi-management.conf /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/52-wifi-management.pkla

Comments

[artfulrobot]

possible duplicate of Remove sudo password when connecting to *new* WiFi network

[artfulrobot]

There's a working solution on another question