8

I have been trying to find out what exactly /home/user/.gksu.lock is.

  1. What does the file do?
  2. If I remove or edit the file, will it affect my system in any way?

1 Answer 1

7

What does the file do?

This is a lock file for gksu (Gtk+ frontend to su(do)). It does nothing if it is on the system (tested it with several gksu nautilus commands; when closing nautilus it did show a "critical" alert ... so it might be a bug that the file is there; EDIT: bug report found for 14.10 but is also has 14.04 in comments: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gksu/+bug/1325251 )

If I remove or edited the file,does it affect my system in any way?

  1. Removing: the system will recreate the file when needed so here the answer is: no. If it is gone and someone is using a gksu action somewhere it will fail to finish the task.

  2. Editing? The file is empty and probably should be empty. If you edit something in I would expect nothing to happen. Sane answer: no, does nothing. I assume the content is not checked but just the presence of the file should be enough to trigger a notice regarding a lock active.

2

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .