Personal-files request for exelearning

[exelearning]

Hi,

We need to publish https://snapcraft.io/exelearning with classic confinement. We tried to, but we received a message asking for the reasons to do that.

eXe has some information that should be saved in the user’s folder. Otherwise it’ll be lost after installing a newer version. If they were only preferences it won’t be a problem, but users can create their own styles (design skins or themes for their contents) and iDevices (activities). All that should be saved in the ~/.exe folder. That work belongs to the user, and it should be out of the package folders.

The snap file we’d like to release is the one we tried to publish yesterday. To try all that, you can open eXe, enable the advanced mode (right top corner) and go to Styles - Style Manager - Create new style. That style sould be saved in the user’s folder.

Thank you very much,

The eXeLearning Team

[ogra]

you can achieve access to ~/.exe by using the personal-files interface …

The personal-files interface | Snapcraft documentation

To get classic confinement granted your app will have to fit into the supported category of:

Process for reviewing classic confinement snaps

Classic confinement review process Background As of snapd 2.20, snappy supports confinement: classic which allows the snap to run without restrictions. Future releases of snapd will also support a classic interface (name TBD) that operates similarly. Snaps specifying classic confinement may target the stable channel, but are only supported on classic distro systems (ie, not on Ubuntu Core). Because classic confinement snaps run without restrictions, use of classic confinement effectively grants…

i suspect “access to a hidden user directory” will not qualify for this …

[alexmurray]

As @ogra mentioned, if the only reason your snap is using classic confinement is to be able to access ~/.exe then that is not an appropriate use-case for this to be granted. The personal-files interface exists explicitly to solve this kind of problem, so you should change your snap to confinement: strict and an appropriate personal-files plug, something like the following (and then ensure this is referenced in the plugs for the app entry:

plugs:
  dot-exe:
     interface: personal-files
     write: 
       - "$HOME/.exe"

[exelearning]

Thank you for your help! We just uploaded a new one with that code and we get this message: human review required due to ‘allow-installation’ constraint (bool) I guess that we just have to wait until it’s reviewed. Is that right?

[ogra]

@exelearning

I guess that we just have to wait until it’s reviewed. Is that right?

Correct, this is the process…

[alexmurray]

+1 from me for use of personal-files named dot-exe for write access to $HOME/.exe for exelearning as this snap is the clear owner of that path.

[pfsmorigo]

+1 from me too. +2 votes for, 0 votes against, granting auto-connect and use of personal-files named dot-exe for read access to $HOME/.exe for eXeLearning. This is now live.

[exelearning]

Hi, Thank you, @pfsmorigo and @alexmurray I see that the package can’t be released to stable channel. Is it because it’s not been reviewed yet or is it just that you can’t release those packages there?

[ogra]

Does your snapcraft.yaml have grade: stable set ?

[exelearning]

Hi @ogra, Yes. grade: stable I think it’s just because it’s not been reviewed, but I don’t know if there’s anything else I can do to get it published. Thank you.