Request: system-backup auto-connection for zffanalyze

store-requests
#1

zffanalyze is a tool for analyzing files in the forensic file format Zff. Since such forensic dumps are usually created with privileged rights (mostly by reading out /dev/xxx-devices), such zff containers are often stored outside of their own /home in practice.

To be able to analyze such files, which can also be located somewhere else in the file system (using zffanalyze), read-only access to those is required. This should be fulfilled with an auto-connection for system-backup. The project itself is open source, you can check for yourself that not a single io::Write operation is performed, only io::Read operations.

I therefore request system-backup auto-connection for the snap zffanalyze.

#2

Hey @ph0llux,

I did a quick check of the code in https://github.com/ph0llux/zffanalyze and I did not find any reference to /var/lib/snapd/hostfs (which is the location where the entire host filesystem is mounted via system-backup). Is this correct?

I apologize if I am misunderstanding how zffanalyze works, I am just trying to see how the snap is trying to analyze zff files.

#3

Hello @emitorino,

I’m the one who has to apologize here - I had assumed in the system-backup interface that I would get read access to files in hostfs - but had probably misunderstood that this has to be done via /var/lib/snapd/hostfs. I ask for your forgiveness, this is my first snap for which I request interface connection :slight_smile:

I extended my code accordingly and wrote a small patch that sets the prefix of the inputfiles to /var/lib/snapd/hostfs when building a snap (the patch is used in snapcraft.yaml from the snap folder. The code to concatenate the paths is in src/bin/lib/mod.rs or src/bin/lib/constants.rs).

I will think of a more elegant solution in the future, but this one works just fine for now. :wink:

Thanks for your answer.

#4

+1 from me for use of and auto-connect of system-backup for zffanalyze.

#5

+1 from me too for auto-connect of the system-backup interface, given that this application only performs read operations, and this is required for usability.

#6

2 votes for, 0 votes against, granting auto-connect of system-backup to zffanalyze. This is now live.