Bug 178988

Summary:	(kde)sudo applications should use GUI settings from calling user
Product:	[I don't know] kde	Reporter:	Fred van Zwieten <kde-bugs>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Unassigned bugs mailing-list <unassigned-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED NOT A BUG
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	arvidjaar, bugseforuns, nicolas.fella, smihael, temporary987
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Compiled Sources
OS:	Unspecified
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	attachment-24287-0.html

Description Fred van Zwieten 2008-12-28 20:48:10 UTC

Version:            (using Devel)
Installed from:    Compiled sources

We all know the problem: When running a GUI app with root privileges, it uses the settings in the .kde folder from root instead of from the user. I propose to change this. I'm not sure how, but a do have a suggestion: Create a separate environment variable for the root-folder for GUI settings. Make sure this variable is passed as an argument in the (kde)sudo call. Then, this app will resolve to the kde folder of the calling user for the GUI settings. It's a fairly big change, because all calls to the GUI settings file need to use the new environment variable. Don't know if this has any security consequences either.

Comment 1 Andreas Pakulat 2009-08-01 17:34:57 UTC

*** Bug 202198 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2 Alexander Mentyu 2018-03-28 09:33:59 UTC

*** Bug 328020 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3 smihael 2019-06-27 10:23:48 UTC

The same should be done for running GTK apps as root (e.g. synaptic).

Comment 4 Nicolas Fella 2020-07-20 15:32:13 UTC

GUI apps should never be run as root. The proper solution to address this is removing the need to do it, i.e. only run the absolutely necessary parts with elevated priviledges, e.g. using polkit

Comment 5 smihael 2020-07-23 11:57:57 UTC

Created attachment 130333 [details]
attachment-24287-0.html

It would still be beneficial to be able to elevate the permissions for the
entire app. Krusader (root mode) is a good example of a tool that benefits
from this approach. When you search through the filesystems, certain files
might only be accessible as superuser and it would be annoying to have
polkit popup asking for the password each time you want to enter such a
directory.

On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 at 17:32, Nicolas Fella <bugzilla_noreply@kde.org>
wrote:

> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=178988
>
> Nicolas Fella <nicolas.fella@gmx.de> changed:
>
>            What    |Removed                     |Added
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>          Resolution|---                         |NOT A BUG
>                  CC|                            |nicolas.fella@gmx.de
>              Status|REPORTED                    |RESOLVED
>
> --- Comment #4 from Nicolas Fella <nicolas.fella@gmx.de> ---
> GUI apps should never be run as root. The proper solution to address this
> is
> removing the need to do it, i.e. only run the absolutely necessary parts
> with
> elevated priviledges, e.g. using polkit
>
> --
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