[Fedora Robotics] unified robots udev and policykit rules package

Martin Langhoff martin at laptop.org
Fri Feb 4 15:15:23 UTC 2011


On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 9:36 AM, Tim Niemueller <tim at niemueller.de> wrote:
> I see your point, but I still have my doubts about a single package to rule
> them all.

(thanks for the CC!)

Doesn't have to rule them *all*. Your point that some hw does require
very specific drivers is valid, and anything that fits that model can
stand alone (packing its own udev, PK -- if relevant at all!).

I am focussing on robot kit that gets connected via USB. Maybe I
should re-brand this as "unified udev/PK for usb robots" :-)

> I haven't looked for it myself, yet, so I'm asking if it is possible to have
> kind of a udev/polkit framework package which:
> - sets up a robots group or some kind of entity we can later assign devices
> and their rules to

Yes, I do think we should all use the same group ("robots").

> - include appropriate udev rule and polkit configuration/machinery to grant
> the console user, and any user in a "robots" group, access to said devices

The udev rule will use the group. The polkit rule actually sidesteps
that -- it adds an ACL for the logged-in-user .

> A problem is that several of the devices you mentioned (like the Arduino),
> are not robotic devices per se, they simply can be used in that domain as
> well. Therefore having a "robot-control" or similar package is not what
> people would be looking for.

Ok - but packages can *depend* on it, that's how I expect that this
package gets installed :-)

> I'd suggest to create per-hardware packages that carry the required rules.

If I am supporting 12 devices, I don't want to maintain 12 packages,
each containing 2 files which together total 5 lines. A single package
grouping similar/related devices is a much better solution IMHO.

cheers,



m
-- 
 martin at laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC
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