[kde-linux] How to silence the device notifier in a multi seat environment

[Duncan]

Juan Ignacio Saitua posted on Wed, 11 Nov 2015 13:40:28 +0000 as
excerpted:

> On Wednesday, November 11, 2015 9:24 AM, Duncan wrote:
>> Removing udisks is likely to do it.
> I tried and it works. Now the notifier does nothing when a usb storage
> is connected. But now I can't mount the device from within kde. I can
> make it by using the command line, but not every user has the knowledge
> to do that. How are you dealing with that?
> 
> I already have a udev rule that notifies only the corresponding user
> desktop that an usb device is connected, but now I would like to trigger
> an "usb insertion device" event in the kde device notifier as well. Do
> you know if there is some dbus interface that can be use to achieve
> that?

OK, this whole post makes me feel a bit like I'm the grouchy old geezer 
waving his cane at the kids to get off his grass, while complaining about 
kids these days and how much better things were in the old days, but 
anyway...

First thing, please don't post in HTML to mailing lists.  (FWIW, your 
post appeared in two parts, one HTML, the other plain text.)  It's 
considered by many knowledgeable list regulars to be a security-
vulnerable message format, and is vulnerable to web-beacon privacy 
invasion techniques even when functioning as designed.  If a message is 
worth reading, it's worth reading in plain text, and dressing it up in 
HTML only makes you look like a spammer, malware spreader, or simply 
someone with a bad understanding of security concepts.  Some choose not 
to respond to HTML posters or even to killfile them, but I do at least 
try to ask nicely first and explain, as I've found a significant number 
of people actually agree and are embarrassed to find they were posting in 
HTML in the first place.  (Kinda like being thankful when someone tells 
you your zipper is down. =:^)

To the topic at hand...

I actually prefer the manual way, entering the mount command in konsole 
or the like.  That way I know it's not mounted until I mount it, and when 
it's mounted, I know the options its mounted with and that they include 
nodev,noexec,user(s), etc, if appropriate, and that they don't, if not.

What I'd do here if necessary for less technically literate users (or 
those without the perms ordinarily necessary to do the mount) would be to 
setup a script with exactly the options I wanted, put an icon for it on 
the desktop or in the menu, and tell them to click it to access their 
device if they want to.  I might even get fancy and use kdialog or the 
like to script a popup dialog telling them they can now use it, and that 
they can close the dialog window when they are done using it, as that 
will automatically kill anything still using it and unmount the device.

The script would have the appropriate sudo mount command if necessary, 
and that specific mount command would be allowed for them in /etc/sudoers, 
so no dbus or polkit necessary.

But I'm sure there's a dbus/polkit interface for it too, were I to look 
for it, as that's surely what the udisks scripts and plasma device 
notifier were using.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman