bug#30228: desktop files embedding full path

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Efraim Flashner <address@hidden> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 12:00:02PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> Efraim Flashner <address@hidden> skribis:
>> 
>> > On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 03:58:51PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> >> Hi,
>> >> 
>> >> Efraim Flashner <address@hidden> skribis:
>> >> 
>> >> > the owncloud-client package includes an option to add a .desktop entry
>> >> > to $HOME/.configure/autostart/, which allows it to autostart when you
>> >> > log in to your desktop environment. Because the full path of the binary
>> >> > is in the .desktop file, it will always start THAT copy of
>> >> > owncloud-client, even if it is garbage collected.
>> >> 
>> >> I think you shouldn’t copy manually the .desktop file to
>> >> ~/.configure/autostart, precisely because of that.
>> >> 
>> >> Instead this should be done via in indirect GC root (as in “guix build
>> >> -r the-root owncloud-client”) or, ideally, by having it GuixSD-managed.
>> >> 
>> >> Thoughts?
>> >> 
>> >> Ludo’.
>> >
>> > I agree it shouldn't copy a .desktop file into .config/autostart/. In
>> > this case, the offending code is here¹, so there's not much that can be
>> > done about it. In mine I've changed the Exec line to
>> > /var/guix/profiles/per-user/... so it'll work as expected. In this case
>> > the code generates a desktop file on the fly, so modifying the .desktop
>> > file shipping with applications wouldn't even help here.
>> >
>> >
>> > ¹ 
>> > https://github.com/owncloud/client/blob/f326bf371d690f1929f7c5c06aebf53c7255daa6/src/common/utility_unix.cpp#L73
>> 
>> What do you think should be done on the Guix side?  We could patch the
>> code above to not install the .desktop file in ~/.config, for instance.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Ludo’.
>
> I've been thinking about it and it would also just be possible to patch
> the exec line there to only have the binary name. As an unintended
> consquence, if you did add the desktop entry to .config/autostart/ and
> the exec was only 'owncloud-client' then we would match the other
> distros' behaviors of not running uninstalled programs, if you were to
> later uninstall owncloud-client from your profile.
>
> I bet the reason it is coded this way is to allow for
> /usr/bin/owncloud-client or /usr/local/bin/owncloud-client, but just
> 'owncloud-client' will pick up the executable if it is in the runpath.
>
> I think that's the best option, to change the 'exec' line to just
> 'owncloud-client'.

Would that pick up owncloud-client if there is an executable of that
name somewhere in PATH?  Could this be a security problem?

-- 
Ricardo

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