Running Notify-Send as Root

Running notify-send as root

Combining tomy's answer with hongo's answer to another question elegantly solves the issue for me.

function notify-send() {
    #Detect the name of the display in use
    local display=":$(ls /tmp/.X11-unix/* | sed 's#/tmp/.X11-unix/X##' | head -n 1)"

    #Detect the user using such display
    local user=$(who | grep '('$display')' | awk '{print $1}' | head -n 1)

    #Detect the id of the user
    local uid=$(id -u $user)

    sudo -u $user DISPLAY=$display DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/$uid/bus notify-send "$@"
}

That function can be used as-is in any script running as root, as a drop-in replacement for the notify-send command.

Notify-send not working in python script run with sudo

So after a bit of research, I've found the solution:

import os

def notify(title, message):

    userID = subprocess.run(['id', '-u', os.environ['SUDO_USER']],
                            stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                            stderr=subprocess.PIPE,
                            check=True).stdout.decode("utf-8").replace('\n', '')

    subprocess.run(['sudo', '-u', os.environ['SUDO_USER'], 'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/{}/bus'.format(userID), 
                    'notify-send', '-i', 'utilities-terminal', title, message],
                    stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                    stderr=subprocess.PIPE,
                    check=True)

notify-send from within a bash script

I'm pretty new to the linux world, but while looking for a solution for a similar project I found THIS

Tip: An overview on the available icons can be found here. To send
desktop notification from a background script running as root (replace
X_user and X_userid with the user and userid running X respectively):

sudo -u X_user DISPLAY=:0 DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/X_userid/bus notify-send 'Hello world!' 'This is an example notification.'

Hope this will help others.

Cron with notify-send

I found the answer:

$ crontab -l
# m h  dom mon dow   command
  * *   *   *   *    export DISPLAY=:0.0 && export XAUTHORITY=/home/ravi/.Xauthority && sudo -u ravi /usr/bin/notify-send Hey "How are you"

notify-send not working (in script) executed from udev

The main problem is, that the udev-rule will not run in any xorg-related environment per default, thus not knowing which DISPLAY to use. Therefore it will always fail, if You want to echo something into a terminal like a gnome-terminal for example. The script, which shall be executed on the udev-rule-match, must prior to any ui-related execution first export the DISPLAY.
This is done via

export DISPLAY=:0

I assume, that this also will be the problem, and notify-send will just run against the wall.

I am actually also playing with udev-rules, and I managed it to work, though i am acting as root, similar to my answer and this one found already here :

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/80882/udev-running-a-shellscript-that-accesses-an-x-display

And also here

Scripts launched from udev do not have DISPLAY access anymore?

You might want also to check zenity. Very helpful for small notifications

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