Is there a KDE widget to share files between two users?

Goverp · Veteran Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 1998

Use case:
I've a general-use linux userid, from which I'm writing this, and a separate userid which I use only for financial stuff.
My default umask is 0026, so without playing group games, the userids cannot read each others' files.
I'm using KDE, and I'd like a foldery widget on both user's desktop into which both users can drop files, and both users can read the files it contains. I.e. the action of dropping a file in it makes it visible and readable from the other userid.
Using groups, it's easy: add each user's self-named group to the other user's group list, and the folder is a {sym?}link on one desktop to a real folder on the other. But that has a side-effect: all files on one userid are readable from the other, and that's too broad. I just want the files in the folder to be shared..

There's probably a way using groups, but I'd rather not fiddle with file Properties on the desktop or use chmod in a terminal; the action of dropping should do whatever's necessary.

Anybody know of a way to achieve this? I can't be the first to want this.
Thanks for suggestions.
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Greybeard

Fitzcarraldo · Last edited by Fitzcarraldo on Sun Feb 11, 2018 2:58 am; edited 3 times in total

I don't know of a KDE widget to do that, but you could do it using Samba on the same machine. A bit of a kludge, I know, but should be achievable. You might need to have a separate public folder per user (e.g. Public-username1 and Public-username2) if you want read-only access in each direction.

EDIT: Below is a smb.conf file similar to the smb.conf in one of my installations (using only Broadcast NetBIOS name resolution for SMB shares, by the way), and it allows users user1 and user2 to share files with each other via their respective Public folders:

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21606

Use a filesystem ACL to grant both users rwx to a root-owned directory outside the normal home directory hierarchy. Relax your umask (umask 022) and instead rely on permissions on the home directories to isolate the two users from each other (chmod 700 ~user1 ~user2). See man getfacl / man setfacl for usage details. Post back if you need more specific help (such as enabling ACLs on your chosen filesystem).

Goverp · Veteran Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 1998

Gents, thanks for those two suggestions. I'm not 100% keen on either. I wonder how hard it would be to have a "LocalPublish" subclass a Plasma folder (assuming that means anything) to have a "setgroup" property that would be applied to anything dropped into it. Then create an appropriate "audience" group, and add the appropriate users.
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Greybeard