GApplication process uniqueness, saving config files and multi-seat support
Hi, With GApplication process uniqueness, an application has a unique process per user *session*. But with multi-seat support, it is possible AFAIK to open several graphical sessions for the same user. Some GTK+ apps save some config/data in e.g. XML files for stuff that don't fit well in GSettings, saved typically in ~/.config/ or ~/.local/share/. So it means that if the same app is opened for the same user in two different sessions, several processes can write to the same XML file, so there can be races, and ideally the app needs to synchronize its state wrt the XML file. I think a lot of applications don't cope well with that situation. If I'm not mistaken, the same problem can happen with NFS-mounted home directories. So I think in those setups, there are a lot of potential bugs in GTK+ applications, because developers (prefer to) think that process uniqueness is per *user*. Some questions: - Does the problem really exists? - Is there a recommended way to handle that situation? - Is there a way to test easily the situation without multi-seat hardware? E.g. with VMs. Something automated, to also being able to write unit/integration tests, or something that e.g. GNOME developers could launch easily. - Or nobody cares about that problem? -- Sébastien ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: GApplication process uniqueness, saving config files and multi-seat support
On 09/10/2017 04:27 AM, Sébastien Wilmet wrote: If I'm not mistaken, the same problem can happen with NFS-mounted home directories. Some relevant blog posts and mailing list entries from the past. http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/locking.html http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/locking2.html Very long thread... https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dbus/2010-May/012777.html There was another post I failed to locate, that went into detail on why none of this stuff works. I think it was from Lennart as well. -- Christian ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: GApplication process uniqueness, saving config files and multi-seat support
On Sun, 2017-09-10 at 13:27 +0200, Sébastien Wilmet wrote: > Hi, > > With GApplication process uniqueness, an application has a unique > process per user *session*. But with multi-seat support, it is > possible > AFAIK to open several graphical sessions for the same user. > > Some GTK+ apps save some config/data in e.g. XML files for stuff that > don't fit well in GSettings, saved typically in ~/.config/ or > ~/.local/share/. > > So it means that if the same app is opened for the same user in two > different sessions, several processes can write to the same XML file, > so > there can be races, and ideally the app needs to synchronize its > state > wrt the XML file. > > I think a lot of applications don't cope well with that situation. > > If I'm not mistaken, the same problem can happen with NFS-mounted > home > directories. > > So I think in those setups, there are a lot of potential bugs in GTK+ > applications, because developers (prefer to) think that process > uniqueness is per *user*. > > Some questions: > - Does the problem really exists? > - Is there a recommended way to handle that situation? > - Is there a way to test easily the situation without multi-seat > hardware? E.g. with VMs. Something automated, to also being able to > write unit/integration tests, or something that e.g. GNOME > developers > could launch easily. > - Or nobody cares about that problem? As a general rule, we don't support being logged in to the same account on 2 different seats, whether they share the same physical machine, or just the backing storage. On physical machines, this is enforced by gdm, and a shared user D-Bus, which mimicks the old session bus. In short, not something to worry about. ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: GApplication process uniqueness, saving config files and multi-seat support
On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 02:25:43PM +0200, Bastien Nocera wrote: > As a general rule, we don't support being logged in to the same account > on 2 different seats, whether they share the same physical machine, or > just the backing storage. > > On physical machines, this is enforced by gdm, and a shared user D-Bus, > which mimicks the old session bus. > > In short, not something to worry about. OK, thanks for the info. ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: GApplication process uniqueness, saving config files and multi-seat support
On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 12:00:28PM -0700, Christian Hergert wrote: > On 09/10/2017 04:27 AM, Sébastien Wilmet wrote: > > If I'm not mistaken, the same problem can happen with NFS-mounted home > > directories. > > Some relevant blog posts and mailing list entries from the past. > > http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/locking.html > http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/locking2.html > > Very long thread... > > https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dbus/2010-May/012777.html > > There was another post I failed to locate, that went into detail on why none > of this stuff works. I think it was from Lennart as well. Thanks for the links, I'll read that later. ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
