s6/s6-rc policy for Gentoo: XDG Base Directory Specification

From: Paul Sopka <psopka_at_sopka.ch>
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2024 01:35:23 +0200

To keep all the stuff a bit organized, I will open another "thread" for
this.

I have read through
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html
and to me the standards seem sensible. Most of it is the default of most
if not all modern desktop programs anyway.

Therefore I would like to completely comply with them in this policy.
This involves, but is not limited to, putting the live dir in
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR. Bercot warned me in
https://skarnet.org/lists/supervision/3114.html that this might be
dangerous since it could be removed to quickly upon logout.

 From the start on, I planned to have all the XDG_* env's managed by the
s6-rc system service which sets up the user supervision tree. This means
setting the env's and, in the case of XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, creating and
removing the directory on demand. By implementing this directly in the
service with correct dependencies, this becomes completely safe and
reliable.

Another suggestion was to delegate the creation and removal of
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to the login monitoring program (which will most likely
be Turnstile), see https://skarnet.org/lists/supervision/3117.html. I do
not think this is the best idea. Instead, I want to push as much basic
functionality as possible to the s6/s6-rc services, for the following
reasons:

1) s6/s6-rc is simple, fast and reliable

2) this allows for an easier future substitution of external programs
used (e.g. substituting Turnstile for an alternative)

3) This allows for more fine grained control by the
sysadmins/distribution contributors.

4) The service setting up and supervising the user tree is perfectly
suited for this, my current, working implementation of creating and
deleting XDG_RUNTIME_DIR containing the live dir consists of two lines
of execline


Do you all have any objections/see any issues with the XDG Base
Directory Specification and adhering to them?

Do you see any issues with my idea of how to handle the XDG_RUNTIME_DIR?

Any input is welcome!


Paul

Received on Sat Jul 06 2024 - 01:35:23 CEST

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