How to run KDE Dolphin, Kate and KWrite as root user

When using KDE I occasionally wish to launch KWrite or Kate as root user in order to edit system files more easily than using a TUI editor in a terminal window (either launched as root user or by using the sudoedit command). Being able to browse using Dolphin as the root user occasionally is also useful. These all used to be possible by launching the application with the kdesu command, but in 2017 KDE developer Martin Gräßlin removed this option on security grounds (see his blog post ‘Editing files as root‘). Attempting to launch e.g. Kate using the sudo command results in the following message:

$ sudo kate
Executing Kate with sudo is not possible due to unfixable security vulnerabilities.

Attempting to launch e.g. Kate using the kdesu command results in a pop-up window prompting me to enter the root user’s password, but then does not launch Kate:

$ kdesu kate
$

I am willing to accept a small risk despite the ‘unfixable security vulnerabilities’ , and a 2018 Kubuntu Forums post by KDE user Rog131 provided me with a solution. It is possible to launch Dolphin, Kate and KWrite as root from your user account by using the pkexec command. For example, to launch Dolphin you can enter:

$ pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5 KDE_FULL_SESSION=true dolphin

Dolphin first displays an orange-coloured box with the warning message ‘Running Dolphin as root can be dangerous. Please be careful.’ and you can then browse and open root-owned directories and files.

You can also launch Kate and KWrite as root from your user account in the same way:

$ pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5 KDE_FULL_SESSION=true kate

$ pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5 KDE_FULL_SESSION=true kwrite

To make it easy to launch them as root user from e.g. Konsole or Yakuake you could set aliases for the three commands in your ~/.bashrc file:

$ tail -n 3 ~/.bashrc
alias dolroot="pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5 KDE_FULL_SESSION=true dolphin"
alias kateroot="pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5 KDE_FULL_SESSION=true kate"
alias kwriteroot="pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5 KDE_FULL_SESSION=true kwrite"

Then all you would need to type in a terminal window would be:

$ dolroot
$ kateroot
$ kwriteroot

which are no more difficult than having to type:

$ kdesu dolphin
$ kdesu kate
$ kdesu kwrite

If an alias is used, rooted-Dolphin/Kate/KWrite can be launched from the command line but cannot be launched via KDE’s Application Launcher menu or KRunner. On the other hand, if a wrapper script is used, rooted-Dolphin/Kate/KWrite can be launched from the user’s command line and via KDE’s Application Launcher menu (and therefore via KRunner too). For example, I created three tiny Bash scripts dolroot, kateroot and kwriteroot. The scripts simply contain the aforementioned pkexec command. For example, dolroot contains:

#!/bin/bash
pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5 KDE_FULL_SESSION=true dolphin

Don’t forget to make them executable:

$ chmod 700 dolroot
$ chmod 700 kateroot
$ chmod 700 kwriteroot
$ ls -la *root
-rwx------ 1 fitzcarraldo fitzcarraldo 115 Jul 30 15:33 dolroot
-rwx------ 1 fitzcarraldo fitzcarraldo 112 Jul 30 15:34 kateroot
-rwx------ 1 fitzcarraldo fitzcarraldo 114 Jul 30 15:34 kwriteroot	

After adding entries for dolroot, kateroot and kwriteroot to the KDE Application Launcher’s menu, you can press Alt+F2 as usual to display the KRunner launcher then enter ‘dolroot’, ‘kateroot’ or ‘kwriteroot’ (without the quotes, obviously) in the KRunner window to launch Dolphin/Kate/KWrite as root user. A window will pop-up for you to enter the root user’s password. Once you have entered the root user’s password, the application will be launched.

Thankfully KDE’s Nathaniel Graham is pragmatic:

D12795 – Re-allow running Dolphin as the root user (but still not using sudo)
D12732 – Show a warning when running as the root user