Limitations in snapd

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This page compiles the list of known limitations in snapd.

  • The $HOME directory of the user must match /home/*. Other directories are not supported yet. In particular /home/subdir/user is also not supported.
  • The per-user data belonging to a given snap is always stored in $HOME/snap/$SNAP_NAME/. The path is not yet configurable.
  • any installation where the user’s home is not available if they’re not logged in, is not yet supported. This includes:
    • installations using automount
    • ecryptfs and similar tech that unencrypt the $HOME directory (or partition) only while the user is logged in

Note here “not supported” does not mean “doesn’t work”. Some things might not work, but also some sequences of events might result in a user not being able to access their data.

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Is there any progress regarding the first point on the list or at least plans to work on this? More and more applications in Ubuntu are being replaced with snaps. For Ubuntu 22.04 notably Firefox and Chromium. Which means right now I have no idea which web browser I should install for our users stored in LDAP who have their home directories on a NFS share.

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+1 for the first point on the list. Would be really great to have a solution here. Currently, each update of a snap app results in a bran new user dir for the app so I lose my entire local state each time. :frowning: