[Konsole-devel] [Bug 173283] New: RFE: configurable history dir to avoid filling up /tmp with unlimited scrollback history

[Nick Leverton]

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=173283

           Summary: RFE: configurable history dir to avoid filling up /tmp
                    with unlimited scrollback history
           Product: konsole
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Debian testing
        OS/Version: unspecified
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: wishlist
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
        AssignedTo: konsole-devel at kde.org
        ReportedBy: nick at leverton.org


Version:            (using KDE 3.5.10)
Installed from:    Debian testing/unstable Packages

I like to run with "unlimited" history in order to catch errors in long
compilations or to refer back to previous debugging output.

I also have /tmp as a RAM-based tmpfs for performance.  Other people may choose
to have a disk-based /tmp on a separate partition (e.g. to avoid RAID or other
filesystem access overheads).

Unfortunately it's not immediately apparent to the user that konsole's screen
history is placed in directory /tmp/kde-$USER and hence that "unlimited"
history is likely to fill up that partition.  I had assumed that it was stored
somewhere in $HOME/.kde and that I could safely keep scrollback history up to
the size of my /home partition.

It's not even immediately obvious when it happens, due to the fact that konsole
(for security) unlinks the history file after creation, so you cannot see what
it is that has filled up your temporary directory !  Only lsof will reveal the
existence of hundreds of megabytes of deleted but still-opened history files
belonging to konsole on the filesystem in question.

Please could konsole have a configurable temporary directory for its history
buffer, in the same way that other KDE applications do which may require to
produce large temporary files (for example k3b).

This would allow people requiring unlimited history to set it to e.g. /var/tmp
(/var in my case is several Gb in size as against the 256Mb of /tmp),  or other
location of their choosing such as .kde/cache-$USER instead of .kde/tmp-$USER,
or even just somewhere in $HOME.

If it's desired to keep things simple for the average user, perhaps this could
only be enabled as an option when "unlimited" history is selected ?


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