Not authorized to control networking in SSH console

I want to control Network manager from the command-line. This worked well enough in Ubuntu 10.04 (with cnetworkmanager, nmcli is another possible choice).

Since the upgrade to Ubuntu 10.10 however, a D-Bus exception is raised when I attempt to activate a connection from within a SSH terminal:

org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.PermissionDenied: Not authorized to control networking.

It may have to do with /etc/dbus-1/system.d/NetworkManager.conf; where else to look for a clue ?

This issue occurs only when I am ssh'd into the machine; in a gnome session I don't get the same issue -- with the same (admin) user account in both cases.

Solution 1:

On more recent Ubuntu's this is control by the polkit.

make new file: /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/allow-ssh-networking.pkla

Add:

[Let adm group modify system settings for network]
Identity=unix-group:adm
Action=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.network-control
ResultAny=yes

Then restart the polkit service. (Make sure your user is in the adm group)

You can find a list of valid NetworkManager actions on your system with pkaction | grep NetworkManager

More info: https://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?276493-Remotely-starting-a-VPN-connection-does-not-work

Solution 2:

By default, DBus only allows root and users sitting at the physical console to control networking settings.

This can be changed by editing DBus policy files, in this case /etc/dbus-1/system.d/NetworkManager.conf