KDE now immediately asks me for my systems root password when I login (it also asks me for my gnupg key, but that's another bug). This happens every time on my system. I have found that the solution to this is to rm /usr/lib64/kde4/libexec/kde_baloo_filewatch_raiselimit This solves it (until next upgrade of KDE packages - in which case the solution needs to be reapplied) Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Log into KDE 2. Immediately get a dialog asking you for your root password
Your system ran out of inotify watches, so baloo is asking permission (via policykit) to raise the limit (as designed).
By design or not, Do you think it is reasonable for KDE to ask for the root password EVERY TIME you boot your computer and login? Do you not see ANY security problems with this at all given that the dialog box DOES NOT tell you WHY it wants the root password? If you think it is reasonable to hand share your root password left and right then do feel free to reply with your IP and root pw.
I agree, the dialog should show more information about why the root password is required. There is already a bug report for that. This hasn't been much of a priority for us since this doesn't affect distros with proper inotify limits. It's actually sad that we had to add this, because otherwise we would waste time diagnosing why Baloo was not working. As always patches are welcome :)
Sorry for the rant, I realize much of this is volunteer work, but the years roll by, and I continue to see excuses for why baloo/nepomuk/whatever should not be simply removed. Its amazing that a search for this software shows the same problems existing for more than a decade, but it continues to exist, cause problems, use way too many resources of all kinds, be marginally useful and be difficult to pin down, disable or eradicate. This is the worst OS component since Bob. I have had a script called "killnepomuk" in my path since I began using KDE for over five years, how it works has changed, but the need for it has not.
(In reply to ted from comment #4) > Sorry for the rant, I realize much of this is volunteer work, but the years > roll by, and I continue to see excuses for why baloo/nepomuk/whatever should > not be simply removed. Its amazing that a search for this software shows the > same problems existing for more than a decade, but it continues to exist, > cause problems, use way too many resources of all kinds, be marginally > useful and be difficult to pin down, disable or eradicate. This is the worst > OS component since Bob. I have had a script called "killnepomuk" in my path > since I began using KDE for over five years, how it works has changed, but > the need for it has not. The problem in this case is an INSTALLATION problem. Your inotify limit should be higher. Most distros do have a sensible limit. If you wanted you could have spent the time writing `$ balooctl disable` in your shell instead of this rant. Baloo is optional, but enabled by default. It's really not that hard to disable. Also, no one is forcing you to use Plasma, which ships it by default.