Sandbox Permissions

One of Flatpak’s main goals is to increase the security of desktop systems by isolating applications from one another. This is achieved using sandboxing and means that, by default, applications that are run with Flatpak have extremely limited access to the host environment. This includes:

  • No access to any host files except the runtime, the app, ~/.var/app/$FLATPAK_ID, and $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/app/$FLATPAK_ID. Only the latter two being writable.

  • No access to the network.

  • No access to any device nodes (apart from /dev/null, etc).

  • No access to processes outside the sandbox.

  • Limited syscalls. For instance, apps can’t use nonstandard network socket types or ptrace other processes.

  • Limited access to the session D-Bus instance - an app can only own its own name on the bus.

  • No access to host services like X11, system D-Bus, or PulseAudio.

Most applications will need access to some of these resources in order to be useful. This is primarily done during the finishing build stage, which can be configured through the finish-args section of the manifest file (see Manifests).

Portals

Portals have already been mentioned in Basic concepts. They are a framework for providing access to resources outside of the sandbox, including:

  • Opening files with a native file chooser dialog

  • Opening URIs

  • Printing

  • Showing notifications

  • Taking screenshots

  • Inhibiting the user session from ending, suspending, idling or getting switched away

  • Getting network status information

In many cases, portals use a system component to implicitly ask the user for permission before granting access to a particular resource. For example, in the case of opening a file, the user’s selection of a file using the file chooser dialog is interpreted as implicitly granting the application access to whatever file is chosen.

This approach enables applications to avoid having to configure blanket access to large amounts of data or services and gives users control over what their applications have access to.

Interface toolkits like GTK3 and Qt5 implement transparent support for portals, meaning that applications don’t need to do any additional work to use them (it is worth checking which portals each toolkit supports). Applications that aren’t using a toolkit with support for portals can refer to the xdg-desktop-portal API documentation for information on how to use them.

Permissions guidelines

While application developers have control over the sandbox permissions they wish to configure, good practice is encouraged and can be enforced. For example, the Flathub hosting service places requirements on which permissions can be used, and software on the host may warn users if certain permissions are used.

The following guidelines describe which permissions can be freely used, which can be used on an as-needed basis, and which should be avoided.

Standard permissions

The following permissions provide access to basic resources that applications commonly require, and can therefore be freely used:

  • --allow=bluetooth - Allow access to Bluetooth

  • --device=dri - OpenGL rendering

  • --device=input - Access to /dev/input

  • --share=ipc - share IPC namespace with the host [1]

  • --share=network - access the network [2]

  • --socket=cups - Talk to the CUPS printing system

  • --socket=gpg-agent - Talk to the GPG agent

  • --socket=pcsc - Smart card access

  • --socket=pulseaudio - Play sound with PulseAudio

  • --socket=ssh-auth- Allow access to SSH_AUTH_SOCK

  • --socket=wayland - Show windows with Wayland

  • --socket=x11 - show windows using X11

  • --socket=fallback-x11 - show windows using X11, if Wayland is not available, overrides x11 socket permission. Note that you must still use --socket=wayland for wayland permission

D-Bus access

Access to the entire bus with --socket=system-bus or --socket=session-bus is a security risk and must be avoided, unless the application is a development tool.

flatpak run --log-session-bus <appid> can be used to find the specific D-Bus permissions needed.

Ownership

Applications are automatically granted access to their own namespace. Ownership beyond this is typically unnecessary, although there are a small number of exceptions, such as using MPRIS to provide media controls.

Talk

Talk permissions can be freely used, although it is recommended to use the minimum required.

Filesystem access

As a general rule, static and permanent filesystem access should be limited as much as possible. This includes:

  • Using portals as an alternative to blanket filesystem access, wherever possible.

  • Using read-only access wherever possible, using the :ro option.

  • If some home directory access is absolutely required, using XDG directory access only.

The following permission options are available:

  • :ro - read-only access

  • :create - read/write access, and create the directory if it doesn’t exist

Additionally the following permissions are available:

host

Access all files [3]

host-etc

Access all files in host and host’s /etc [3]

home

Access the home directory [4]

/some/dir

Access an arbitrary path [5] [6]

~/some/dir

Access an arbitrary path relative to the home directory [6]

xdg-desktop

Access the XDG desktop directory

$XDG_DESKTOP_DIR or $HOME/Desktop

xdg-documents

Access the XDG documents directory

$XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR or $HOME/Documents

xdg-download

Access the XDG download directory

$XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR or $HOME/Downloads

xdg-music

Access the XDG music directory

$XDG_MUSIC_DIR or $HOME/Music

xdg-pictures

Access the XDG pictures directory

$XDG_PICTURES_DIR or $HOME/Pictures

xdg-public-share

Access the XDG public directory

$XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR or $HOME/Public

xdg-videos

Access the XDG videos directory

$XDG_VIDEOS_DIR or $HOME/Videos

xdg-templates

Access the XDG templates directory

$XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR or $HOME/Templates

xdg-config

Access the XDG config directory [7]

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME or $HOME/.config

xdg-cache

Access the XDG cache directory [7]

$XDG_CACHE_HOME or $HOME/.cache

xdg-data

Access the XDG data directory [7]

$XDG_DATA_HOME or $HOME/.local/share

xdg-run/path

Access subdirectories of the XDG runtime directory

$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/path (/run/user/$UID/path)

Note that host, host-etc, host-os mounts the host directories under /run/host inside the sandbox to avoid conflict with the runtime.

Except host, host-etc, host-os paths can be added to all the above filesystem options. For example, --filesystem=xdg-documents/path.

Other filesystem access guidelines include:

  • The --persist=path option can be used to map paths from the user’s home directory into the sandbox filesystem. This makes it possible to avoid configuring access to the entire home directory, and can be useful for applications that hardcode file paths in ~/.

  • If an application uses $TMPDIR to contain lock files you may want to add a wrapper script that sets it to $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/app/$FLATPAK_ID.

  • Retaining and sharing configuration with non-Flatpak installations is to be avoided.

Device access

While not ideal, --device=all can be used to access devices like controllers or webcams.

dconf access

As of xdg-desktop-portal 1.1.0 and glib 2.60.5 (in the runtime) you do not need direct DConf access in most cases.

As of now this glib version is included in org.freedesktop.Platform//19.08 and org.gnome.Platform//3.34 and newer.

If an application existed prior to these runtimes you can tell Flatpak (>= 1.3.4) to migrate the DConf settings on the host into the sandbox by adding --metadata=X-DConf=migrate-path=/org/example/foo/ to finish-args. The path must be similar to your app-id or it will not be allowed (case is ignored and _ and - are treated equal).

If you are targeting older runtimes or require direct DConf access for other reasons you can use these permissions:

--filesystem=xdg-run/dconf
--filesystem=~/.config/dconf:ro
--talk-name=ca.desrt.dconf
--env=DCONF_USER_CONFIG_DIR=.config/dconf

With those permissions glib will continue using dconf directly.

If you use a newer runtime where dconf is no longer built and still need it you will have to build the dconf GIO module and set --env=GIO_EXTRA_MODULES=/app/lib/gio/modules/.

gvfs access

As of gvfs 1.48, the gvfs daemons and applications use an on-disk socket to communicate, rather than an abstract socket so that the gvfs infrastructure still works when network support is disabled in the application’s sandbox.

A number of different options need to be passed depending on the application’s use of gvfs.

--talk-name=org.gtk.vfs.* is necessary to talk to the gvfs daemons over D-Bus and list mounts using the GIO APIs.

--filesystem=xdg-run/gvfsd is necessary to use the GIO APIs to list and access non-native files using the GIO APIs, using URLs rather than FUSE paths.

--filesystem=xdg-run/gvfs is necessary to give access to the FUSE mounts non-GIO and legacy applications can use. This is what will make native files appear under /run/user/`id -u`/gvfs/.

Typical GNOME and GTK applications should use:

--talk-name=org.gtk.vfs.*
--filesystem=xdg-run/gvfsd

Typical non-GNOME and non-GTK applications should use:

--filesystem=xdg-run/gvfs

No application should be using --talk-name=org.gtk.vfs in its manifest, as there are no D-Bus services named org.gtk.vfs.

Footnotes