github-starred/firejail

Fork 0

mirror of https://github.com/netblue30/firejail.git synced 2026-05-15 14:16:14 -06:00

[GH-ISSUE #435] unable to delete created symlink when closing Google Earth #315

New issue

Closed

opened 2026-05-05 05:35:05 -06:00 by gitea-mirror · 5 comments

gitea-mirror commented

2026-05-05 05:35:05 -06:00

Owner

Originally created by @Fred-Barclay on GitHub (Apr 14, 2016).
Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/issues/435

G'day netblue30 (and of course to the other blokes as well)! I'm working on a profile for Google Earth--it's been pretty straight-forward with one exception: GE creates a symlink ~./googleearth/instance-running-lock which points to /proc/subdir (so far it's been /proc/12 but I'm not willing to say it'll stay at /proc/12).

Ordinarily, ~./googleearth/instance-running-lock is deleted when closing GE, but when running in firejail, the symlink remains after closing. Hence, the next time GE is started (in firejail or not), we get the following jolly message:
Google Earth appears to be running already. Please kill the
existing process, or delete /home/fred/.googleearth/instance-running-lock if this is an error.

If I mkdir ~./googleearth/instance-running-lock in the profile, and then whitelist it, that defeats the purpose as GE sees the directory and refuses to start.

A quick-n-dirty hack might be to add rmdir ~/.googleearth/instance-running-lock to the profile, but firejail doesn't seem to support this option in profiles. Besides, I'm not really happy with doing this. There might be a one-in-a-hundred occurrence in which there was a legitimate use for instance-running-lock and I think it'd be better to let GE handle deleting the directory itself.
But how? :-)

The profile I'm using is at (http://pastebin.com/KM6v9bJr). firejail --noprofile google-earth doesn't behave any better...

Cheers, mate!

Originally created by @Fred-Barclay on GitHub (Apr 14, 2016). Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/issues/435 G'day netblue30 (and of course to the other blokes as well)! I'm working on a profile for Google Earth--it's been pretty straight-forward with one exception: GE creates a symlink `~./googleearth/instance-running-lock` which points to /proc/_subdir_ (so far it's been /proc/12 but I'm not willing to say it'll stay at /proc/12). Ordinarily, `~./googleearth/instance-running-lock` is deleted when closing GE, but when running in firejail, the symlink remains after closing. Hence, the next time GE is started (in firejail or not), we get the following jolly message: _Google Earth appears to be running already. Please kill the existing process, or delete /home/fred/.googleearth/instance-running-lock if this is an error._ If I `mkdir ~./googleearth/instance-running-lock` in the profile, and then whitelist it, that defeats the purpose as GE sees the directory and refuses to start. A quick-n-dirty hack might be to add `rmdir ~/.googleearth/instance-running-lock` to the profile, but firejail doesn't seem to support this option in profiles. Besides, I'm not really happy with doing this. There might be a one-in-a-hundred occurrence in which there was a legitimate use for `instance-running-lock` and I think it'd be better to let GE handle deleting the directory itself. But how? :-) The profile I'm using is at (http://pastebin.com/KM6v9bJr). `firejail --noprofile google-earth` doesn't behave any better... Cheers, mate!

gitea-mirror

2026-05-05 05:35:05 -06:00

closed this issue
added the
enhancement
label

gitea-mirror commented

2026-05-05 05:35:11 -06:00

Author

Owner

@netblue30 commented on GitHub (Apr 14, 2016):

I think you should try firejail --private. It will get rid of the link.

@netblue30 commented on GitHub (Apr 14, 2016): I think you should try firejail --private. It will get rid of the link.

gitea-mirror commented

2026-05-05 05:35:12 -06:00

Author

Owner

@Fred-Barclay commented on GitHub (Apr 15, 2016):

That will get rid of the symlink... but it will also not load any saved locations. :(
I'm not sure if this is a quirk of google earth or firejail just yet. It's seeming that google earth loses read-write privileges in ~/.googleearth just before it closes (though that's purely conjecture at this point).

@Fred-Barclay commented on GitHub (Apr 15, 2016): That will get rid of the symlink... but it will also not load any saved locations. :( I'm not sure if this is a quirk of google earth or firejail just yet. It's seeming that google earth loses read-write privileges in `~/.googleearth` just before it closes (though that's purely conjecture at this point).

gitea-mirror commented

2026-05-05 05:35:14 -06:00

Author

Owner

@netblue30 commented on GitHub (Apr 16, 2016):

I'll install Google Earth here and give it a try, somehow we'll have to fix this.

@netblue30 commented on GitHub (Apr 16, 2016): I'll install Google Earth here and give it a try, somehow we'll have to fix this.

gitea-mirror commented

2026-05-05 05:35:16 -06:00

Author

Owner

@Fred-Barclay commented on GitHub (Apr 16, 2016):

Sounds good. Thanks, mate!
BTW: I should have mentioned that this is on LMDE Betsy (close to Debian Jessie) with the 4.4.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 kernel.

@Fred-Barclay commented on GitHub (Apr 16, 2016): Sounds good. Thanks, mate! BTW: I should have mentioned that this is on LMDE Betsy (close to Debian Jessie) with the 4.4.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 kernel.

gitea-mirror commented

2026-05-05 05:35:17 -06:00

Author

Owner

@Fred-Barclay commented on GitHub (Oct 7, 2017):

This doesn't seem to be an issue anymore after #1555

@Fred-Barclay commented on GitHub (Oct 7, 2017): This doesn't seem to be an issue anymore after #1555

gitea-mirror referenced this issue

2026-05-05 10:04:18 -06:00

[PR #315] [MERGED] edit wesnoth profile (small fix) #3594

No milestone

No project

No assignees

1 participant

Notifications

Due date

The due date is invalid or out of range. Please use the format "yyyy-mm-dd".

No due date set.

Dependencies

No dependencies set.

Reference: github-starred/firejail#315

No description provided.

Rows
Columns