/var/tmp/kdecache

[Marc Morici]

Kubuntu v7.10, rec'd this error when doing kdesu kate

/var/tmp/kdecache-<user>" is owned by uid 1000 instead of uid 0

[Chris Cook (chris-cook10)]

Works for me.

This directory should be owned (at least it is on my system) by the uid of the user '<user>'. 1000 is the number of the first user.

You can use the command 'id' at a terminal whilst logged in as <user> to discover the uid.

Please confirm if this bug still applies with recent updates.

[Paul Hoell (hoellp)]

Hello
I'm testing Kubuntu 8.04 and this issue only applies when doing 'sudo kate' but not with 'kdesu/kdesudo kate'.
Additionally there are similar errors for /tmp/ksocket-<user> and /tmp/kde-<user>.
<-

[Chris Cook (chris-cook10)]

Ok, I can confirm Paul Hoell's comment on 7.10. (sudo shows the fault, kdesu and kdesudo don't).

This doesn't seem to affect the basic operation of kate (I can open and save files). So perhaps the error message is inaccurate. It would be better if it was a warning and gave some indication why it matters.

Also, other Kde programs are affected in exactly the same manner - including kwrite, kpdf, kmines*, kprinter.

knetwalk* is not affected. kgolf* is just plain funky and spits this message out eventually.

Additionally, googling for "/var/tmp/kdecache- is owned by uid 1000 instead of uid 0." gives a lot of results, some are on other distributions, so this is probably an upstream issue.

* I can see why running games like this is silly, but its included as an example. Games are run with
sudo /usr/games/<game name>

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

GUI applications should never be run with sudo, as it can cause permissions errors that may even prevent you from logging in. Using kdesudo for administrator privileges is the appropriate method.

[AaronPeterson (alpeterson)]

So, basically we need to sudo proof our gui applications, because it's not obvious that we must use kdesudo.

Is this error message stays even when I've closed the sudo'ed application.
I hope it doesn't stay on next login.
-AP (Kubuntu 8.10)

and could this be a security problem? I mean, why would the cache normally be owned by user 0 (root)... and if it's owned by my user 1000, that means that if I leave it open for someone else to use they could put whatever they want into that cache... and if it gets ran with superuser privildges then we have an exploit.

This is like saying:
"safely run program x"
which has been in use for years and is standard, and then later learning that one must run

"pretty please safely run the program x"
which isn't given as a warning or anything when we run sudo.

Maybe making a complicated alias where if a program off of the list of gui programs is considered would work. that gives an error message that use of our common and hiddenly misunderstood sudo is deprecated.

[Robutux (kubuntu-support-mail)]

Same problem with "/var/tmp/kdecache-<user>" is owned by uid 1000 instead of uid 0" error but when trying to set up share in dolphin. I discovered this when running it by 'kdesudo dolphin'. When used in KDE it just does nothing when I click 'configure share settings'.

It asked for password the first time. Maybe I misspelled it but I'm unable to try again as the dialog for password just doesn't open now - that's when I tried it in terminal and got that error.

When I run it in terminal as regular user it says "QSocketNotifier: Invalid socket 35 and type 'Read', disabling..." and no dialog appears either.

I'm running kubuntu Jaunty upgraded just now