pkaction

pkaction [--verbose] [--version] [action_id...]

--verbose, -v
    Print detailed information for each action, including annotations and full descriptions.

--version
    Display version information and exit.

action_id...
    Optional list of specific action IDs to display; if omitted, shows all actions.

The pkaction command is a utility from the Polkit (formerly PolicyKit) framework, which provides an authorization infrastructure for allowing unprivileged processes to communicate with privileged ones.

It displays information about installed Polkit actions, defined in .action XML files typically located in /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/. Each action represents a specific privilege or operation, such as mounting devices or installing software, with associated metadata like descriptions, vendor info, and message domains for internationalization.

Without arguments, pkaction lists all available actions with basic details. Specifying action IDs filters output to those actions. In verbose mode, it shows full details including annotations and implicit privileges. This tool is useful for administrators debugging authorization policies or developers inspecting available actions before integrating Polkit into applications.

Polkit actions are central to desktop environments like GNOME and KDE for fine-grained access control beyond simple sudo.

Requires Polkit package installed; lists only system-wide actions by default. May require root for some environments. Output depends on installed .action files.

Basic mode shows: action_id - description (vendor). Verbose adds details like implicit any auth_admin privileges.

pkaction org.freedesktop.packagekit.package-install
Filters to specific package install action.

Introduced in PolicyKit 0.7 (2008) by David Zeuthen as part of freedesktop.org's authorization framework. Renamed to Polkit in version 0.105 (2011). Remains stable in modern Linux distributions for action introspection.

pkcheck(1), pkexec(1), polkit(8), pktypelist(1)