davfs kernoops can't mount partition as user

[abdanner]

Binary package hint: davfs2

Just upgraded to 9.10 karmic today. When I try to mount a webDAV partition as a non-root user, I get

/sbin/mount.davfs: / is the home directory of user kernoops.
You can't mount into another users home directory

This worked in 9.04 jaunty

my fstab for the partition is

https://hostname_here.edu /media/dav davfs rw,noauto,user 0 0

mount /media/dav produces this error

my davfs2.conf contains

dav_group davfs2
use_locks 0

man mount.davfs2 reads:

 When mounted by an ordinary user, the mount point must not lie
              within the home directory of another user.

but kernoops seems like a strange user with a home directory of root. Can this directory be changed or can mount.davfs be fixed?

[Open Sense Solutions (opensense)]

yes, this is a problem. until there is a legitimate fix I'm going to do without the oops tracker:

apt-get remove kerneloops-daemon
perl -ni -e 'print unless /kernoops/' /etc/passwd

I could maybe see this being a bug of kerneloops-daemon since / is not really a home directory in the traditional sense, but on the other hand davfs2 policy is not ideal since there are many unusual but technically possible assignments of home directories. I would rather see davfs2 restrict mounting in a better way, maybe only on directories that the user has write permission on regardless of where it is in the filesystem.

[Francisco de la Peña (francisco-dlp)]

From davfs2.conf manpage:
       ignore_home
              An ordinary user is not allowed to mount within the home direc‐
              tory of another user. But sometimes system users (like nobody)
              get assigned home directories (like /), that include common
              mount points. This option allows to give a comma seperated list
              of system users that will be excluded from this check.
              Only allowed in the system wide configuration file.

So, the following line to /etc/davfs2/davfs2.conf should solve the problem without disabling the oops tracker:

ignore_home kernoops

[abdanner (abdanner)]

Thanks Fran. I missed the ignore_home options in man davfs2.conf. It works fine.

[Bastelnerk (bastelnerk)]

+1 for changing default settings. otherwise everyone using davfs for the first time has to google until this bug is found.

[Fabian Schäfer (fabians)]

Happened to me as well on 10.04.

[Choik (choikzcomputers)]

I'm trying his solution but every time I exclude a user, it looks like the system magically finds another user whose home dir it is.
So far I excluded "nobody" "dbus" "tcpdump" "heldaemon" and "nm-openconnect".

Every time I add one to the list, another one seems to block my path.

I'm using Fedora 14

[Choik (choikzcomputers)]

Anyone still active in this one?

[Choik (choikzcomputers)]

This seems to be working on Ubuntu 10.10 but not on Fedora 14.
Also, I am getting mapped to my folder /oneNet/Netstorage but I only see a Lost&Found folder.
Nothing else :(

Any idea why this coud be?

If I go in via command prompt I see all my network folders but of course I'd like to use a GUI

[Choik (choikzcomputers)]

Well this is an eye opener.
Just apt-get install konquerer and he can webdav://yourplace.com/yourfolder immideately!!

[Michael R. Crusoe (misterc)]

Looks like this is an Ubuntu-only issue, but it'd be nice to have fixed here.

Unlike the Fedora user above adding kernaloops to the ignore_home option fixed the issue for me. As kerneloops is part of the default install for ubuntu-desktop and ubuntu-netbook I agree that this should fix should be part of the Ubuntu package.

[Michael R. Crusoe (misterc)]

I have confirmed that this (particular) bug is unique to Ubuntu and Ubuntu derivatives, as Debian's kerneloops packages does not make use of a special account.

Hence my proposed merge to fix this in Ubuntu's branch (and not upstream).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package davfs2 - 1.4.6-1ubuntu1

---------------
davfs2 (1.4.6-1ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  * Add kernoops to ignore_home to allow mounts under / in Ubuntu.
    (LP: #459998)
  * Add distccd to ignore_home to allow mount under / in Debian & Ubuntu.
 -- <email address hidden> (Michael R. Crusoe) Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:42:35 +0200

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Maverick merged/uploaded.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Applied patch to lucid and uploaded to unapproved queue, needs ubuntu-sru processing now.

[Clint Byrum (clint-fewbar)]

APPROVED: after review the package should enter lucid-proposed.

  Non blocker problems:
   - config.sub debian/po are unrelated changes, but all in auto-generated files and so acceptible though the package should be fixed to not modify these files in the clean target.

[Clint Byrum (clint-fewbar)]

Accepted davfs2 into lucid-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Accepted davfs2 into maverick-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

[Michael R. Crusoe (misterc)]

Turns out that the system-wide configuration is copied to ~/.davfs2/ if it isn't present after a user mount. Unfortunately it errors on any "system wide config file only" option present in this location, including the one I introduced.

So the version in Natty (and maverick-proposed & lucid-proposed) now represents a regression.

I'm looking to see if it would be easy to develop a patch to silently ignore these system wide configuration options while reading the ~/.davfs2/davfs2.conf file.

If timing is tight, then the version in natty should be reverted. Mea culpa!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Thanks for noticing. I removed the packages from lucid/maverick-proposed again. I also uploaded a reversion to natty.

Odd that this happens, though; the option is marked as "system-wide config only"? I. e. it's a bug that these options are being copied to the per-user one?

[Michael R. Crusoe (misterc)]

I've filled LP: 746700 explaining this discovery and have linked it to a fix

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package davfs2 - 1.4.6-1ubuntu3

---------------
davfs2 (1.4.6-1ubuntu3) natty; urgency=low

  * Warn on misplaced configuration options, don't exit (LP: #746700)
  * Add kernoops to ignore_home to allow mounts under / in Ubuntu.
    (LP: #459998)
  * Add distccd to ignore_home to allow mount under / in Debian & Ubuntu.
 -- <email address hidden> (Michael R. Crusoe) Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:20:43 +0200

[Michael R. Crusoe (misterc)]

Upstream has released a different fix for this and LP: #746700 at https://savannah.nongnu.org/support/?107641. This still needs packaging.

[Yury V. Zaytsev (zyv)]

So how about Maverick?

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

please backport a fix to lucid

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

maverick has seen the end of its life and is no longer receiving any updates. Marking the maverick task for this ticket as "Won't Fix".