Good default for XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

defaultsdesktopdirectory

The XDG Base Directory Specification is a very interesting spec for user directories. It also provides good default values, except for XDG_RUNTIME_DIR.

Now I am writing a software that needs to create named pipes. It is a per-user client-server framework (there is a FIFO for the server and a FIFO per client).

If XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is not defined, I am currently using a per-user subdirectory in /tmp — but it does not ensure all the specified conditions (viz. the paragraph starting with "The lifetime of the directory MUST be bound to the user being logged in…")

Is /tmp/myserver-$USER good enough?

Edit

I saw elsewhere a few suggestions:

  • . is quite unsatisfactory (at least because it is not an absolute path).
  • I also saw /var/run/user/$USER — not bad, but that directory does not exist (at least on my box running a Debian testing)

Best Answer

/tmp is used by plenty of programs in a similar way already. On my system I can see the /tmp/orbit-$USER (used by Gnome's ORBit2) and /tmp/.X11-unix/ (Xorg and X11) directories with plenty of pipes, ehm, sockets, in them. I am sure there are also others, so I see nothing wrong with what you are doing. Just be prepared that since it is a world writeable location a malicious process can hijack the location (verify the permissions before you write to it).

I can also recommend $TMPDIR for those who use pam_mktemp, as this directory is only accessible by the user.

Related Topic