Comment 3 for bug 1288448

On Wed, Mar 05, 2014 at 10:48:30PM -0000, Jamin W. Collins wrote:
> Public bug reported:
>
> Recently, I received a prompt indicating that dropbox needed super user
> permissions. I found this strange as dropbox should only need access to
> folders and files owned by my user. A quick google search turned up the
> following:
>
> http://blog.ishans.info/2013/12/26/fixing-authentication-is-needed-to-
> run-usrbindropbox-as-the-super-user-error-in-linux/
>
> The referenced fix:
>
> diff --git a/dropbox b/dropbox
> index e4f2bfc..c087b71 100755
> --- a/dropbox
> +++ b/dropbox
> @@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ GPG_WARNING = u"Note: python-gpgme is not installed, we will n
> DOWNLOADING = u"Downloading Dropbox... %d%%"
> UNPACKING = u"Unpacking Dropbox... %d%%"
>
> -PARENT_DIR = os.path.expanduser("/var/lib/dropbox")
> +PARENT_DIR = os.path.expanduser("~")
> DROPBOXD_PATH = "%s/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd" % PARENT_DIR
> DESKTOP_FILE = u"/usr/share/applications/dropbox.desktop"
>
> does indeed appear to work.

By default, we use /var/lib/dropbox/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd, which is the
systemwide installation of dropbox that is automatically downlodaded/upgraded as
you upgrade your nautilus-dropbox package via apt, so PARENT_DIR is as intended.
By moving it to $HOME/.dropbox-dist instead, you're switching it to using your
per-user dropbox instance which resides in your home directory.

The problem here is that dropbox, as launched by the user, appears to want to
update dropbox of its own accord, whereas /var/lib/dropbox/.dropbox-dist is only
upgraded when the actual nautilus-dropbox package is upgraded.

My guess is that this only happens when upstream dropbox wants you to update
your dropbox verison and the nautilus-dropbox package you have installed does
not upgrade itself due to being frozen as a part of a stable Ubuntu release.

A simple workaround without patching would be to reinstall the nautilus-dropbox
package.

I'm leaving this bug as new because I'm still considering what the best course
of action would be:
 - to drop our Debian patch that makes dropbox use a systemwide
   /var/lib/dropbox/.dropbox-dist installation; or

 - to find some way to disable dropbox from attempting to automatically
   upgrade itself.

--
Kind regards,
Loong Jin