&kde; for Administrators

Waldo Bastian bastian@kde.org &Philip.Rodrigues; &Philip.Rodrigues.mail; &kde; for Administrators &kde; Internals Overview to be written Directory Layout &kde; defines a filesystem hierarchy which is used by the &kde; environment itself as well as all &kde; applications. In general &kde; stores all its files in a directory tree with a fixed structure. By default &kde; uses two directory trees: One at the system level (for example /opt/kde3). One at the user level in the user's home directory (usually ~/.kde) As a system administrator you can create additional trees. Such additional trees can be used for profiles &SuSE; &Linux; for example uses: $HOME/.kde /opt/kde3. (This is &SuSE;-specific; other distributions may use /usr or /usr/kde3) /etc/opt/kde3. (This was added by &SuSE;). If you have the KIOSK Admin tool v0.7 or later installed you can check which directory trees are used with the following command: kiosktool-kdedirs &kde; and &kde; applications look up files by scanning all the &kde; directory trees. The directory trees are checked in order of precedence. When a file is present in multiple directory trees, the file from the last tree takes precedence. Normally, the tree located in the user's home directory has the highest precedence. This is also the directory tree to which changes are written. For information about the text/plain &MIME; type the following files are searched: $HOME/.kde/share/mimelnk/text/plain.desktop /opt/kde3/share/mimelnk/text/plain.desktop /etc/opt/kde3/share/mimelnk/text/plain.desktop If a user makes a change, the change is written to $HOME/.kde/share/mimelnk/text/plain.desktop For configuration files the story is slightly different. If there are multiple configuration files found in the directory trees with the same name, their content is combined. The precedence order of the directory trees plays a role here. When two files define the same configuration key, the file with the highest precedence determines which value is used for the key. For example, if the following two files exist, with these contents: $HOME/.kde/share/config/foobar Color=red Shape=circle /etc/opt/kde3/share/config/foobar Color=blue Position=10,10 The files will be merged to result in: Color=red Shape=circle Position=10,10 Specifying Directories Environment Variable Example Setting(s) Comment KDEHOME ~/.kde KDEROOTHOME /root/.kde Different variable to prevent root writing to $KDEHOME of the user after running su. KDEDIR /opt/kde3, /usr, /usr/kde3 Vendor dependent. Used by &kde; 2. If not set, falls back to compiled-in default. KDEDIRS /opt/kde3, /usr, /usr/kde3 New in &kde;3. Can list multiple locations separated by a colon. If not set, falls back to $KDEDIR Don't need to be set, defaults work just fine. Running &kde;2 next to &kde;3? Point $KDEDIR to &kde; 2 and $KDEDIRS to &kde; 3. A staff member at a university could have the following settings: KDEHOME='~/.kde3' KDEROOTHOME='/root/.kde3' KDEDIRS='/opt/kde_staff:/opt/kde3' User Profiles In the previous example /opt/kde_staff contained additional settings and applications for staff members. User Profiles allow you to add this directory only for certain users and not for others. Add the following to /etc/kderc: [Directories-staff] prefixes=/opt/kde_staff This creates a profile named staff that adds the /opt/kde_staff directory tree. (Note that &SuSE; &Linux; uses /etc/kde3rc instead of /etc/kderc. Now that we have a named profile it can be assigned to users. To map profiles to users a mapping file needs to be specified in /etc/kderc: [Directories] userProfileMapFile=/etc/kde-user-profile It is now possible to assign a profile based on either the user name or based on the &UNIX; group the user is part of. To assign the staff profile to all users that are a member of the &UNIX; group staff_members add the following to /etc/kde-user-profile: [General] groups=staff_members [Groups] staff_members=staff It is also possible to assign a profile to a single user: [Users] bastian=staff Directory Layout Revisited Each directory tree used by &kde; has a fixed directory structure. Directories that are not relevant for a certain tree, or simply not used can be left out though. For example, directories used for temporary files are usually only found under $KDEHOME but not in any other directory tree. Architecture-specific Directories Architecture (OS and CPU type) specific directories: bin Used for &kde; executables. lib Used for &kde; libraries. lib/kde3 This directory contains components, plugins, and other runtime loadable objects for use by &kde; 3.x applications. Shared Directories Shared: Not architecture specific, can be shared between different archs. share/applnk .desktop files for &kde;-menu (old) share/applications .desktop files for &kde;-menu (since &kde; 3.2) share/apps Contains application-specific data files. Each application has a sub-directory here for storing additional data files. share/config Configuration files. Configuration files are normally named after the application they belong to plus the letters rc. A special case is kdeglobals. This file is read by all &kde; applications. share/config/session This directory is used by session management and is normally only available under $KDEHOME. At the end of a session &kde; applications store their state here. The file names consist of the name of the application followed by a number. The session manager ksmserver stores references to these numbers when saving a session in ksmserverrc. share/doc/HTML This directory contains documentation for &kde; applications. Documentation is categorized by language and the application it belongs to. Normally at least two files can be found in a directory: index.docbook, which contains the documentation in the unformatted DocBook format, and index.cache.bz2, which contains the same documentation formatted as bzip2-compressed &HTML;. The &HTML; version is used by &khelpcenter;. If the &HTML; version is missing, &khelpcenter; will regenerate it from the DocBook version but this is a time-consuming process. share/icons Under this directory icons are stored. Icons are categorized by theme, dimension and usage category. share/mimelnk In this directory,.desktop files that describe &MIME; types are stored. &kde; uses &MIME; types to identify the type of a file. share/services This directory contains .desktop files that describe services. Services are like applications but are usually launched by other applications instead of the user. Services do not appear in the &kde; menu. share/servicetypes This directory contains .desktop files that describe servicetypes. A servicetype usually represents a certain programming interface. Applications and Services include in their >.desktop files the servicetypes that they provide. share/sounds This directory contains sound files. share/templates This directory contains templates for creating files of various types. A template consists of a .desktop file that describes the file and that includes a reference to a file in the .source sub-directory. The templates in this directory appear in the Create New menu available on the desktop and in the file browser. When a user selects a template from the menu its source file is copied. share/wallpapers This directory contains images that can be used as background picture Host-specific Directories There are three host-specific directories that are usually symlinked to other locations. If the directories do not already exist, the following symlinks and directories will be created using the lnusertemp utility: $KDEHOME/socket-$HOSTNAME Usually /tmp/ksocket-$USER/, this is used for various &UNIX; sockets. $KDEHOME/tmp-$HOSTNAME Usually /tmp/kde-$USER/, this is used for temporary files. $KDEHOME/cache-$HOSTNAME Usually /var/tmp/kdecache-$USER/, this is used for cached files. Since both /tmp and /var/tmp are world writable, there is a possibility that one of the above directories already exists but is owned by another user. In that case the lnusertemp utility will create a new directory with an alternative name and link to that instead. Configuration Files &kde; uses a simple text-based file format for all its configuration files. It consists of key-value pairs that are placed in groups. All &kde; configuration files use UTF-8 encoding for text outside the ASCII range. The start of a group is indicated by a group name that is placed in square brackets. All the key-value entries that follow belong to the group. The group ends when either another group starts or when the end of the file is reached. Entries at the top of the file that are not preceded by a group name belong to the default group. The following example shows a configuration file that consists of two groups. The first group contains the keys LargeCursor and SingleClick, the second group contains the keys Show hidden files and Sort by: [KDE] LargeCursor=false SingleClick=true [KFileDialog Settings] Show hidden files=false Sort by=Name Entries in a group consist of a key and value separated by an equals sign. The key can contain spaces and may be followed by options placed in square brackets. The part after the equals sign is the value of the entry. Any white space surrounding the equals sign is ignored, as is any trailing white space. Put more concisely, the format is: entry=value If a value is supposed to include a space at the begin or end then this can be achieved by using a backslash followed by an s. There are several other backslash codes; here is a complete list: \s can be used as space \t can be used to include a tab \r for a carriage return character \n for a linefeed character (new line) \\ to include the backslash itself In the following example the value of the Caption entry starts with two spaces while the Description entry contains three lines of text. Linefeeds in backslash notation are used to separate the different lines. [Preview Image] Caption=\s My Caption Description=This is\na very long\ndescription. Empty lines in configuration files are ignored, as are lines that start with a hash mark (#). The hash mark can be used to add comments to configuration files. It should be noted that when a &kde; application updates a configuration file the comments are not preserved. There can be multiple configuration files with the same name in the share/config sub-directory of the various &kde; directory trees. In this case the information of all these configuration files is combined on a key-by-key basis. If the same key within a certain group is defined in more than one place, the key value read from the directory tree with the highest precedence will be used. Configuration files under $KDEHOME always have the highest precedence. If a key in a certain group is defined multiple times in a single file, the value of the last entry is used. If $HOME/.kde/share/config/foobar contains: [MyGroup] Color=red Shape=circle and /etc/opt/kde3/share/config/foobar contains [MyGroup] Color=blue Position=10,10 the result will be: [MyGroup] Color=red Shape=circle Position=10,10 If $HOME/.kde/share/config/foobar contains [MyGroup] Color=red Shape=circle [MyGroup] Color=green and /opt/kde_staff/share/config/foobar contains [MyGroup] Color=purple Position=20,20 and /etc/opt/kde3/share/config/foobar contains [MyGroup] Color=blue Position=10,10 the result will be: [MyGroup] Color=green Shape=circle Position=20,20 To prevent users being able to override default settings, settings can be marked immutable. Settings can be made immutable individually, per group or per file. An individual entry can be locked down by adding [$i] behind the key, ⪚: Color[$i]=blue A group of entries can be locked down by placing [$i] behind the group name, ⪚: [MyGroup][$i] To lock down the entire file, start the file with [$i] on a single line, &ie;: [$i] If $HOME/.kde/share/config/foobar contains: [MyGroup] Color=red Shape=circle and /etc/opt/kde3/share/config/foobar contains: [MyGroup][$i] Color=blue Position=10,10 the result will be: [MyGroup] Color=blue Position=10,10 If $HOME/.kde/share/config/foobar contains: [MyGroup] Color=red Shape=circle and /opt/kde_staff/share/config/foobar contains [MyGroup] Color=purple Shape=rectangle and /etc/opt/kde3/share/config/foobar contains [MyGroup][$i] Color=blue Position=10,10 the result will be [MyGroup] Color=purple Shape=rectangle Position=10,10 So-called Shell Expansion can be used to provide more dynamic default values. With shell expansion the value of a configuration key can be constructed from the value of an environment variable or from the output of a shell command. To enable shell expansion for a configuration entry, the key must be followed by [$e]. Normally the expanded form is written into the user's configuration file after first use. To prevent that, it is recommend to lock the configuration entry down by using [$ie]. The user can't change it then of course. In the following example the value for the Host entry is determined by the output of the hostname program. This setting is also locked down to ensure that the value is always determined dynamically. The value for the Email entry is determined by filling in the values of the $USER and $HOST environment variables. When joe is logged in on joes_host this will result in a value equal to joe@joes_host. The setting is not locked down. [Mail Settings] Host[$ie]=$(hostname) Email[$e]=${USER}@${HOST} Most configuration entries can be indexed with a language code. In this case, the language that the user has selected for use on the desktop is used to look up the key value. If the default language (American English) has been selected or if there is no index that corresponds to the selected language, the key entry without index is used. In the following example the value of the Caption entry depends on the language. If the user has selected French as language (language code fr) the value of the entry will be Ma Légende. In all other cases the value My Caption will be used. [Preview Image] Caption=My Caption Caption[fr]=Ma Légende In this example the value of the Caption entry depends on the language. If the user has selected French as language (language code fr) the value of the entry will be Ma Légende. In all other cases the value My Caption will be used. [Preview Image] Caption=My Caption Caption[fr]=Ma Légende In general the entries that can appear in a configuration file are not documented. With &kde; 3.2 a start has been made to change this. In $KDEDIR/share/config.kcfg, files can be found that provide a formal description of the possible entries in a configuration file. These are used by the new &kde; Configuration Editor when available. Here is an example &XML; configuration file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE kcfg SYSTEM "http://www.kde.org/standards/kcfg/1.0/kcfg.dtd"> <kcfg> <kcfgfile name="korganizerrc"/> <group name="General"> <entry type="Bool" key="Auto Save"> <label>Enable automatic saving of calendar</label> <default>true</default> </entry> <entry type="Int" key="Auto Save Interval"> <default>10</default> </entry> </group> </kcfg> It has the same effect as: [General] Auto Save=false Auto Save Interval=25 &kde; Startup Sequence &kdm; Always runs as root! Uses $KDEDIR/share/config/kdmrc and /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers. The latter contains entries like: :0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X :0 vt07 Relevant startup files are also: [X-*-Core] section in kdmrc Setup - /etc/X11/xdm/Xsetup User enters username & password Startup - /etc/X11/xdm/Xstartup - prepare as root Session - /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession - starts session as user = For a KDE session: kde or startkde = If present ~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc Reset - /etc/X11/xdm/Xreset - after session finished The &kde; Startup Script: <command>startkde</command> The &kde; startup sequence starts with the startkde script. In most cases this script gets called from the display manager (&kdm;) once the user has been authenticated. Their are two very important lines in the startkde script: LD_BIND_NOW=true kdeinit +kcminit +knotify and kwrapper ksmserver $KDEWM The first line starts the kdeinit master process. The kdeinit master process is used to start all other &kde; processes. It show up in the output of ps as kdeinit: Running.... The arguments after kdeinit are the names of additional processes to be started. The + indicates that kdeinit needs to wait till the process has finished. kdeinit also starts dcopserver, klauncher and kded. The second of the two lines asks kdeinit to start the ksmserver session manager process. The session manager determines the lifetime of the session. When this process exits, the user is logged out. Background Processes All &kde; background services are user-specific: unlike system daemons they are not shared between users. As well as being unique per user they are also unique per X-server display. The processes are: dcopserver Desktop communication kded Generic service daemon. Triggers Sycoca database updates when needed kcminit Initialization service See for more information. klauncher Program launch (this is not the &Alt;F2 dialog!) See for more information. knotify User notifications. See for more information. ksmserver Session management See for more information. <command>kdeinit</command> kdeinit is used to start all other &kde; programs. kdeinit can start normal binary program files as well as kdeinit loadable modules (KLMs). KLMs work just like binary program files but can be started more efficiently. KLMs live in $KDEDIR/lib/kde3 The drawback is that programs started this way appear as kdeinit in the output of top and ps. Use top or ps to see the actual program name: %ps waba 23184 0.2 2.1 23428 11124 ? S 21:41 0:00 kdeinit: Running... waba 23187 0.1 2.1 23200 11124 ? S 21:41 0:00 kdeinit: dcopserver --nosid waba 23189 0.2 2.4 25136 12496 ? S 21:41 0:00 kdeinit: klauncher waba 23192 0.7 2.8 25596 14772 ? S 21:41 0:00 kdeinit: kded waba 23203 0.8 3.4 31516 17892 ? S 21:41 0:00 kdeinit: knotify kdeinit: Running... indicates the master kdeinit process. The other processes listed are programs started as KLMs. When kdeinit starts for the first time it will launch dcopserver, klauncher, and kded, as well as any additional programs specified on its command line in the startkde script, normally kcminit and knotify. <command>dcopserver</command> dcopserver is a daemon which provides inter-process communication (&DCOP;) facilities to all &kde; applications. The &DCOP; facilities are accessible from the command shell via the dcop command line tool. &DCOP; is essential for all &kde; applications. Some related files: $HOME/.DCOPserver_$HOSTNAME_$DISPLAY ⪚ .DCOPserver_linux__0. Controlled by $DCOPAUTHORITY /tmp/.ICE-unix/dcoppid-number ⪚ dcop7634-1069677856. This is the file that the DCOPserver file above points to. $HOME/.ICEauthority Authorization information controlled by $ICEAUTHORITY kcminit kcminit executes initialization services during startup. Initialization services are specified in the .desktop files of applications or services via the X-KDE-Init line: [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Exec=kcmshell energy Icon=energy_star Type=Application X-KDE-Library=energy X-KDE-Init=energy Initialization services are typically used for initializing hardware based on user-specified settings. kcminit can be used to show all initialization services and kcminit service can be used to execute a single service explicitly. This can be useful when investigating startup problems. <command>klauncher</command> klauncher is a daemon which is responsible for service activation within &kde;. It operates in close connection with the kdeinit master process to start new processes. &kde; applications communicate with klauncher over &DCOP; in order to start new applications or services. Best known from the error message: KLauncher could not be reached via DCOP which either indicates a serious problem with the dcopserver or that klauncher crashed. klauncher can be restarted by restarting kdeinit from a console window. Make sure that $HOME, $DISPLAY and the various $KDEDIR(S) are set correctly when doing so! <command>knotify</command> The primary task of knotify is to relay sound notifications to the sound server, it also provides alternative notification methods. KSMServer ksmserver is &kde;'s session manager. On startup the session manager launches auto-start applications and restores applications from the previous session. The applications to auto-start are indicated by .desktop files in the $KDEDIR/share/autostart directory. Whether or not to auto-start an application can be made conditional upon some configuration entry determined by the X-KDE-autostart-condition entry in the .desktop file. The ktip.desktop file for example contains: X-KDE-autostart-condition=ktiprc:TipOfDay:RunOnStart:true This means that the ktiprc configuration file is checked for a RunOnStart entry in the [TipOfDay] section. If no such entry is found, true is assumed, which means that ktip is one of the applications that is auto-started by default. Some of the applications auto-started by ksmserver are: kdesktop The &kde; desktop &kicker; The &kde; panel ktip A tip of the day program kwrited A utility to receive system messages sent to the user &klipper; A clipboard utility that docks in the panel kalarm A utility that warns about upcoming events and appointments kdesktop in its turn automatically starts applications stored in $KDEHOME/Autostart. kdesktop will automatically open any files stored in this directory including documents, binary files or applications in the form of .desktop files. The &kde; session manager also restores one of the previous sessions. A session contains a collection of applications as well as application-specific information that reflects the state of the applications at the time the session was saved. Sessions are stored in the ksmserverrc configuration file which contains references to application-specific state information. The application-specific state information is saved in $KDEHOME/share/config/session. The state information of &kwin; contains the location of the application windows of all the other applications in the session. Environment variables Some important environment variables used by &kde;: $KDEDIR Has to be set if KDEDIRS is not set and has to point to the root of the &kde; installation tree. Allows &kde; to find its data like icons, menus and libraries. $KDEDIRS Overrides KDEDIR and allows you to specify multiple directories where &kde; searches for its data. Useful if you want or have to install some programs to a different prefix than the rest of &kde;. $KDEHOMEIf not set, &kde; uses ~/.kde as the directory where personal data is stored. $KDEROOTHOMEIf not set, &kde; uses ~root/.kde as the directory for root's personal data. Was introduced to prevent &kde; from accidently overwriting user data with root permissions when the user runs a &kde; program after switching with su to root. $KDEWMIf the KDEWM environment variable has been set, then it will be used as &kde;'s window manager within the startkde script instead of &kwin;. $KDE_LANGOverrides the &kde; language configuration, ⪚ KDE_LANG=fr kprogram & starts a program with French translation if the necessary files are installed. $KDE_MULTIHEADSet this variable to true to indicate that &kde; is running on a multi-head system. $KDE_FORK_SLAVES (Since &kde; 3.2.3) Set this variable to spawn KIO-slaves directly from the application process itself. By default KIO-slaves are spawned using klauncher/kdeinit. This option is useful if the KIO-slave should run in the same environment as the application. This can be the case with Clearcase. $KDE_HOME_READONLY Set this variable to indicate that your home directory is mounted as read-only. $KDE_NO_IPV6 (Since &kde; 3.2.3) - Set this variable to disable IPv6 support and IPv6 DNS lookups. $KDE_IS_PRELINKED (Since &kde; 3.2) - Set this variable to indicate that you have prelinked your &kde; binaries and libraries. This will turn off kdeinit. $KDE_UTF8_FILENAMESIf this environment variable is set, &kde; assumes all filenames are in UTF-8 encoding regardless of the current C locale. $KDE_FULL_SESSION (Since &kde; 3.2) Automatically set to true by &kde; startup, it is used by ⪚ &konqueror; to know if it should consider remaining in memory for future re-use when being closed. If not set, &konqueror; will exit after being closed (⪚ &kdesu; does that, it's also useful for debugging). $KDESYCOCAAllows you to specify the path and the name of the generated &kde; system configuration cache file. $KDETMPAllows to specify another path than /tmp where &kde; stores its temporary files. $KDEVARTMPAllows to specify another path than /var/tmp where &kde; stores its variable files. $XDG_DATA_HOME (Since &kde; 3.2) Defines the base directory relative to which user-specific data files should be stored. Default is $HOME/.local/share $XDG_DATA_DIRS (Since &kde; 3.2) Defines the preference-ordered set of base directories to search for data files in addition to the $XDG_DATA_HOME base directory. Default is /usr/local/share/:/usr/share/ &kde; adds locations from $KDEDIRS and profiles as well. Used for .desktop and .directory menu files. .desktop files under $XDG_DATA_DIRS/applications. .directory files under $XDG_DATA_DIRS/desktop-directories $XDG_CONFIG_HOME (&kde; 3.2) - Defines the base directory relative to which user specific configuration files should be stored. Default is $HOME/.config. $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS (&kde; 3.2) - Defines the preference-ordered set of base directories to search for configuration files in addition to the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME base directory. The default is /etc/xdg &kde; adds locations from $KDEDIRS and profiles as well. Used by .menu descriptions in $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/menus. The kdeinit Mystery kdeinit is used to start all other &kde; programs. kdeinit can start normal binary program f iles as well as kdeinit loadable modules (KLMs). KLMs work just like binary program files but can be started more efficiently. KLMs live in $KDEDIR/lib/kde3 The drawback is that programs started this way appear as kdeinit in the output of top and ps. Use top or ps to see the actual program name: % ps aux | grep bastian bastian 26061 0.0 2.2 24284 11492 ? S 21:27 0:00 kdeinit: Running... bastian 26064 0.0 2.2 24036 11524 ? S 21:27 0:00 kdeinit: dcopserver bastian 26066 0.1 2.5 26056 12988 ? S 21:27 0:00 kdeinit: klauncher bastian 26069 0.4 3.2 27356 16744 ? S 21:27 0:00 kdeinit: kded bastian 26161 0.2 2.7 25344 14096 ? S 21:27 0:00 kdeinit: ksmserver bastian 26179 1.1 3.4 29716 17812 ? S 21:27 0:00 kdeinit: kicker bastian 26192 0.4 3.0 26776 15452 ? S 21:27 0:00 kdeinit: klipper bastian 26195 1.0 3.5 29200 18368 ? S 21:27 0:00 kdeinit: kdesktop As you might have noticed, this has another side effect, making it difficult to kill a process that is causing trouble: % killall kdesktop kdesktop: no process killed You might be tempted to try killall kdeinit, but killing all kdeinit processes will have the effect of shutting down all of &kde;. In effect, total destruction! There are two simple solutions to this: % kdekillall kdesktop or good old % kill 26195 kdekillall is part of the &kde; SDK package. Customizing &kde; Desktop Icons &kde; uses several types of icons: Documents Links to Websites (using .desktop file) Links to Applications (using .desktop file) Devices - Disks, Partitions & Peripherals: Explicit using .desktop file Automatic via devices:// io-slave Vendor-specific (⪚ &SuSE;'s My Computer) Websites Links to Websites using .desktop file: Create NewFileLink to Location (URL). Change Icon using Properties dialogs. The resulting .desktop file: [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Icon=/opt/kde3/share/apps/kdesktop/pics/ksslogo.png Type=Link URL=http://www.kde.org/ Applications Links to Applications using .desktop file: Create NewFileLink to Application. You must provide details yourself. Drag from &kde; Menu: Either copy or link (creates symlink), much easier [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 GenericName=IRC Client GenericName[af]=Irc Kliët GenericName[de]=IRC Programm ... GenericName[zu]=Umthengi we IRC SwallowExec= Name=KSirc Name[af]=Ksirc Name[de]=KSirc ... Boiler plate Translated generic description, not used on desktop Legacy, can be removed Translated name as it appears on desktop Desktop Icons ... Name[zu]=Ksirc MimeType= Exec=ksirc %i %m Icon=ksirc TerminalOptions= Path= Type=Application Terminal=0 X-KDE-StartupNotify=true X-DCOP-ServiceType=Multi Categories=Qt;KDE;Network Supported &MIME; types, not used on desktop The command line to execute The icon, from icon theme or full path Only used if terminal is needed Working directory for command More boiler plate Use true if terminal is needed, text application Show bouncy cursor, disable if it doesn't work. Has app started ok? Remove if it doesn't work Categories for &kde; Menu, not used on desktop The <varname>Exec</varname> option in <literal role="extension">.desktop</literal> files Following the command, you can have several place holders which will be replaced with the actual values when the actual program is run: %f A single file name; used when dropping file on icon, or with file associations. %F A list of files; use for applications that can open several local files at once. %u A single &URL;: if the app can handle ⪚ &FTP; or &HTTP; &URL;s itself, otherwise &kde;. %U A list of &URL;s; will download the file first and pass a local file to the app (!!) %d The folder of the file to open; useful if app needs to have file in current working directory. %D A list of folders, not very practical. %i The icon; option; &kde; app will use icon from Icon= line in taskbar. %m The mini-icon; legacy. %c The caption; option; &kde; app will use name from Name= line in taskbar. Examples: Exec line Command executed ksirc %iksirc --icon ksirc cd %d; kedit $(basename %f)cd /tmp; kedit file.txt Devices Links to Devices using .desktop file: o Create New -> Device Where to Define Many places to define Desktop Icons: ~/Desktop: copied from /etc/skel/Desktop $KDEDIR/apps/kdesktop/Desktop (merged) $KDEDIR/apps/kdesktop/DesktopLinks (copied) Device Icons (dynamically merged) Distribution Specific SUSE Linux copies certain icons in startkde.theme from /opt/kde3/share/config/SuSE/default/ &kde; Menu How it Works In &kde; 3.2 a common menu format is introduced at http://freedesktop.org/Standards/menu-spec/ Before &kde; 3.2: Directory structure under share/applnk Directory structure represents menu structure Each .desktop file represents a single application It was difficult to rearrange the structure in &kde; 3.2 so the new menu format: Defines structure in a single .menu file Is based on categories is shared between GNOME and &kde; Supports applnk style menus as well Example from kde-applications.menu: <Menu> <Name>Office</Name> <Directory>suse-office.directory</Directory> <Include> <Filename>Acrobat Reader.desktop</Filename> <Filename>kde-kpresenter.desktop</Filename> <Filename>kde-kword.desktop</Filename> </Include> <Menu> Menu entry with 3 applications: /usr/share/applications/Acrobat Reader.desktop /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/kpresenter.desktop /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/kword.desktop Stored Where? .menu files describing the menu structure. The files are stored in $KDEDIR/etc/xdg/menus and /etc/xdg/menus. These store the system-wide menu structure and are controlled by $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS. $HOME/.config/menus stores user-specific changes to the menu structure and is controlled by $XDG_CONFIG_HOME. For more information, see http://www.freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec. .desktop files describe the applications and are stored in: $KDEDIR/share/applications, /usr/share/applications, /usr/local/share/applications. These are the system-wide application .desktop files which are controlled by $XDG_DATA_DIRS. $HOME/.local/applications contains user-specific .desktop files and user-specific changes. It is controlled by $XDG_DATA_HOME. For more information, see http://www.freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec .directory files describing the sub-menus are stored in: $KDEDIR/share/desktop-directories, /usr/share/desktop-directories, /usr/local/share/desktop-directories. These are the system-wide menu .directory files, controlled by $XDG_DATA_DIRS. The user-specific changes are stored in $HOME/.local/desktop-directories. These are controlled by $XDG_DATA_HOME. For more information, see http://www.freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec Example from kde-applications.menu: <Menu> <Name>Art</Name> <Directory>suse-edutainment-art.directory</Directory> <Include> <Category>X-SuSE-Art</Category> </Include> </Menu> Art is the internal name for this menu. suse-edutainment-art.directory defines the name and icon for this menu, and the menu includes all applications that have X-SuSE-Art listed as a category, ⪚: Categories=Qt;KDE;Education;X-SuSE-Art suse-edutainment-art.directory defines the name and icon for this menu: [Desktop Entry] Name=Art and Culture Icon=kcmsystem Common Pitfalls Applications not in the menu do not exist with regard to other applications or file associations: If you remove an application from the menu, &kde; assumes you don't want to use it. When applications are unwanted in the menu, either place them in .hidden menu or a dedicated menu with NoDisplay=true in the .directory file Essential Menus $KDEDIR/etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/ contains kde-essential.menu which includes some essential menus that are normally not shown in the &kde; menu itself: Control Center has a hidden Settings menu whose contents are defined by kde-settings.menu and whose icon and name are defined by kde-settings.directory Info Center has a hidden Information menu whose contents are defined by kde-information.menu and whose icon and name are defined by kde-information.directory. Screensavers contains a hidden System/Screensavers menu, whose contents are defined by kde-screensavers.menu and whose icon and name are defined by kde-system-screensavers.directory. $KDEDIR/share/desktop-directories/kde-system-screensavers.directory contains: NoDisplay=true Old-Style Menus &kde; continues to support old-style menus that are defined by the directory structures in $KDEDIR/share/applnk (system wide) and $HOME/.kde/share/applnk (user specific). This is observed unless the .desktop file has a Categories= line. In that case the categories determine the location in the menu. <application>KSycoca</application> KSycoca caches menu structure and information about all available applications. You can rebuild the database with kbuildsycoca. The database which is built lives in /var/tmp/kdecache-${USER}/ksycoca. It is automatically updated by KDED, checked during &kde; login, and KDED watches for changes while logged in. To disable watching for changes (since it may hurt over NFS) add the following to kdedrc: [General] CheckSycoca=false To force regeneration, run touch $KDEDIR/share/services/update_ksycoca. &kmenuedit; &kmenuedit; is aimed at a single user setup. Changes to menu structure are saved to ~/.config/menus/applications-kmenuedit.menu, changes to applications are saved in ~/.local/share/applications/ and changes to sub-menus (icon, name) are saved in ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/. The KIOSK Admin Tool uses &kmenuedit; and copies the above changes to profile- or system-wide locations. &kde; Panel The &kde; panel is also known as &kicker;. It is modular and consists of the following components: Applets Application buttons Special Buttons By default, the panel contains the following applets: Pager - shows the virtual desktops Taskbar System Tray Clock and the following special buttons: &kde; menu Desktop Button Various application buttons are also added, space permitting: Home Button Browser Button KMail Button File Associations File associations associate a file type with an application or applications. The type of a file is established by determining its &MIME; type. &MIME; types known by &kde; are stored in $KDEDIR/share/mimelnk and each application's .desktop file contains a list of &MIME; types supported by that application. kview.desktop: MimeType=image/gif;image/x-xpm;image/x-xbm;image/jpeg; image/x-bmp;image/png;image/x-ico;image/x-portable-bitmap; image/x-portable-pixmap;image/x-portable-greymap; image/tiff;image/jp2 kuickshow.desktop: MimeType=image/gif;image/x-xpm;image/x-xbm;image/jpeg; image/png;image/tiff;image/x-bmp;image/x-psd;image/x-eim; image/x-portable-bitmap;image/x-portable-pixmap; image/x-portable-greymap Both can open image/gif Which one is used to open a .gif file? The application with highest preference!. kview.desktop contains InitialPreference=3 whereas kuickshow.desktop contains InitialPreference=6 Therefore, &kuickshow; will be used to open .gif files. How can we make &kview; default? A user can change file association in the &kcontrolcenter;. These changes are stored in $HOME/.kde/share/config/profilerc. To use the same settings for multiple users, store these settings in user profile directory or the global &kde; config directory to use as default for multiple users. Locking Down &kde; How It Works - The Basics &kde;'s lock down features are centered around the following options: Make configuration options immutable Restriction of specific actions Restrict access to certain &URL;s Restrict access to certain configuration modules Immutable Configuration Options Locking Down &kde; Immutable options allow system administrator to provide default settings that can not be changed by the user. Pre-existing configuration options of the user will be ignored once a configuration option is made immutable. Options can be controlled either on a per entry basis, per group of entries or on a file by file basis. If a file or group is immutable, all configuration options for that file or group are immutable, even those options for which the system administrator has no default provided. The support in applications for immutable options may vary from application to application. Although the user will not be able to make permanent changes to immutable configuration options, the user may still be presented with an user interface option to make such change. Action Restrictions &kde; applications are built around the action-concept. Actions can be activated in various ways, typically via the menu-bar, one of the toolbars or a keyboard shortcut. Save Document is an example of an action. If you know the internal action name it is possible to restrict an action. When an action is restricted it will no longer appear in the menu-bar or toolbar. The internal name for the Save Document action is . The lock down framework also provides a set of more abstract restrictions which can be used to disable functionality not covered by a single action. An example is the restriction which disables all functionality that would offer the user access to a &UNIX; shell. Restrict User Access to Shells In order to prevent the user access to a command shell we can restrict the action by adding the following to kdeglobals: [KDE Action Restrictions] shell_access=false Since this affects the &kde; menu and the available applications, we must force an update of the sycoca database: touch $KDEDIR/share/services/update_ksycoca Now re-login to &kde; and check the following points: The &kmenu; In &konqueror;, ToolsOpen Terminal The &Alt;F2 run command Full documentation about available actions can be found on http://www.kde.org/areas/sysadmin/. A few of the more interesting actions are listed below: The Configure option form the Settings menu The Report Bug option from the Help menu. &RMB; mouse button menu on the desktop. &RMB; mouse button menu on the panel. Hide all actions or applications that require root access. Hides all actions or applications that provide shell access. Disables the option to select the printing system (backend). Whether the user will be able to lock the screen Whether the user may start a second X session (see also &kdm;) Whether OpenGL screensavers are allowed to be used. Permit screensavers that do not hide the entire screen &URL; Restrictions There are three types of restrictions that can be applied to &URL;s: list To control whether a directory listing is allowed. open To control whether certain &URL;s can be opened Redirect To control whether one &URL; can open another &URL;, either automatically or via a hyperlink. Rules are checked in the order in which they are defined. The last rule that is applicable to a &URL; defines whether the &URL; may be accessed. The following rules disable opening http and https &URL;s outside .ourcompany.com: [KDE URL Restrictions] rule_count=2 rule_1=open,,,,http,,,false rule_2=open,,,,http,*.ourcompany.com,,true The first four commas skip over the selection criteria with respect to the originating &URL;. This part is only needed with redirect type rules. forbids the opening of any http or https &URL; allows the opening of any http and https &URL; in the .ourcompany.com domain. Note the wildcard * is only allowed at the start of a domain. The following rules makes that the user can no longer browse directories on the local file system that are outside his $HOME directory: [KDE URL Restrictions] rule_count=2 rule_1=list,,,,file,,,false rule_2=list,,,,file,,$HOME,true forbids the listing of any local directory allows listing directories under the users own $HOME directory. $HOME and $TMP are special values to indicate the users home directory and the &kde; temporary directory of the user, ⪚ /tmp/kde-bastian The following rules makes that the user can no longer open local files that are outside his $HOME directory: [KDE URL Restrictions] rule_count=3 rule_1=open,,,,file,,,false rule_2=open,,,,file,,$HOME,true rule_3=open,,,,file,,$TMP,true forbids the opening of any local file allows opening files under the users own $HOME directory. allows opening files in the &kde; temporary directory of the user. This is needed by certain &kde; applications that first download a file or document to the temporary directory and then open it in an application. The redirection option controls whether documents from a certain location can refer, either automatically or manually via a hyperlink, to a certain other location. A set of default rules is present as a general security measure. For example documents located on the Internet may not refer to locally stored documents. For example, if we want to give the intranet-server www.mycompany.com the possibility to refer to local files we could add the following rule: [KDE URL Restrictions] rule_count=1 rule_1=redirect,http,www.mycompany.com,,file,,,true Instead of listing a protocol by name, it is also possible to specify a whole group of protocols. For that the following groups have been defined: :local Protocols that access locally stored information, examples are file:/, man:/, fonts:/, floppy:/ :internet Common internet protocols such as http and ftp Information about protocols is stored in *.protocol files stored in $KDEDIR/share/services. The = entry defines the group a protocol is part of: grep $KDEDIR/share/services/*.protocol General rules: The :local protocols may refer to any other protocol It's always allowed to refer to an :internet protocol Not all protocols are part of a group, fish:/ for example. Configuration Modules &kde; has configuration modules to configure various aspects of the &kde; environment. Configuration modules appear in the Control Center, in the Configuration dialog of an application or in both. The proxy configuration module appears in the Control Center but also as part of the Configure Konqueror dialog in &konqueror; Individual configuration modules can be started with kcmshell module To start the Proxy module use: kcmshell kde-proxy.desktop kcmshell proxy Not all applications use configuration modules, often the configuration dialog is an integral part of the application itself. All configuration modules are strictly speaking part of the &kde; menu. The modules that are visible in the Control Center normally have a .desktop file in $KDEDIR/share/applications/kde and are sorted under the hidden Settings-Modules menu by the kde-settings.menu, included from kde-essential.menu kbuildsycoca 2> /dev/null | grep Settings-Modules Application specific modules normally have a .desktop file under $KDEDIR/share/applnk/.hidden which corresponds to the hidden .hidden menu, included as a result of <KDELegacyDirs/> kbuildsycoca 2> /dev/null | grep .hidden In &kde; 3.3 it is possible to edit the Control Center with kcontroledit. kcontroledit works just like kmenuedit, changes for current user only. Use kiosktool to make changes for everyone. Individual configuration modules can be disables by adding the following to kdeglobals: [KDE Control Module Restrictions] module-id=false For example, to disable the proxy module use [KDE Control Module Restrictions] kde-proxy.desktop=false Check the Control Center and the Configure Konqueror dialog if the proxy configuration is still there. The Lazy Admin &kde; DIY - Building Your Own Tools DCOP Desktop COmmunication Protocol, DCOP, is a lightweight mechanism for inter-process communication. DCOP allows the user to interact with programs that are currently running. &kde; supplies two programs to utilitize DCOP: dcop, a command-line program, and kdcop, a GUI program. A few notes about using dcop: dcop [options] [application [object [function [arg1] [arg2] ... ] ] ] Applications that can open more than one window at a time will be listed as <application>-PID All the arguments are case-sensitve. setFullScreen and setfullscreen are two different functions. The regular expression token * can be used in the application and object arguments. % dcop konqueror-16006 konsole-8954 Some example commands and their output are below: % dcop konsole-8954 One &konsole; is running with a PID of 8954. % dcop KBookmarkManager-.../share/apps/kfile/bookmarks.xml KBookmarkManager-.../share/apps/konqueror/bookmarks.xml KBookmarkNotifier KDebug MainApplication-Interface konsole (default) konsole-mainwindow#1 ksycoca session-1 session-2 session-3 session-4 Here you see that there are four sessions running. % dcop QCStringList interfaces() QCStringList functions() int sessionCount() QString currentSession() QString newSession() QString newSession(QString type) QString sessionId(int position) void activateSession(QString sessionId) void nextSession() void prevSession() void moveSessionLeft() void moveSessionRight() bool fullScreen() void setFullScreen(bool on) ASYNC reparseConfiguration() Here are the options for the main &konsole; program. % dcop QCStringList interfaces() QCStringList functions() bool closeSession() bool sendSignal(int signal) void clearHistory() void renameSession(QString name) QString sessionName() int sessionPID() QString schema() void setSchema(QString schema) QString encoding() void setEncoding(QString encoding) QString keytab() void setKeytab(QString keyboard) QSize size() void setSize(QSize size) Here are the options for the first session, session-1. % dcop true This sets &konsole; to full screen. When there is more than one application/object, which one should you use? Got a reference? % echo DCOPRef(konsole-7547,konsole) % dcop session-6 % dcopstart konsole-9058 #!/bin/sh konsole=$(dcopstart konsole-script) session=$(dcop $konsole konsole currentSession) dcop $konsole $session renameSession Local session=$(dcop $konsole konsole newSession) dcop $konsole $session renameSession Remote session=$(dcop $konsole konsole newSession) dcop $konsole $session renameSession Code dcop $konsole $session sendSession 'cd /my/work/directory' KDialog &kde; DIY - Building Your Own Tools You can use &kde; dialogs from your own scripts, to combine the power of &UNIX; shell scripting with the ease of use of &kde;. kdialog kdialog The KDialog part can be replaced via option kdialog Saves whether to show again in $KDEHOME/share/config/myfile (by writing into this file the following lines: [Notification Messages] mykey=false Instead of you can also use and , as appropriate. For instance, you might use kdialog or kdialog . It is also possible to create message boxes that accept a yes or no answer. kdialog echo $? Return Value Meaning 0Yes, OK, Continue 1No 2Cancel Make sure to store the result in a variable if you do not use it directly, the next command will fill $? with a new value You can use here as well, it will remember the users choice and returns it the next times without showing the dialog any more. Further variations are: like but with a different icon With Continue and Cancel buttons. With Yes, No and Cancel button. For example: kdialog kdialog The result is printed to stdout, to put it in a variable you can use name=$(kdialog --inputbox "Enter your name:" "YourName"). The last argument is optional, it is used to pre-fill the dialog. password=$(kdialog ) The option does not work with or There are two dialogs that let the user make a choice from a list: Lets the user select a single item from a list. Lets the user select one or more items from a list. city=$(kdialog ) $city will a, b, c or d. city=$(kdialog ) Madrid and Paris will be pre-selected. The result with Madrid and Paris selected will be "b" "c". If you add the option, it will put b and c each on a line of its own, making the result easier to process. file=$(kdialog --getopenfilename $HOME) file=$(kdialog --getopenfilename $HOME "*.png *.jpg|Image Files") file=$(kdialog --getsavefilename $HOME/SaveMe.png) file=$(kdialog --getexistingdirectory $HOME) &groupware-with-kontact;