running vscode with gksudo or sudo permission

[ayanb1991]

visual studio not starting up when running it with gksudo or sudo permission on my Arch Linux. The window just got hanged every time. Starting normally works.

Can not save a file whose owner is root, Gives EACCESS_PERMISSION error. In case of other editors, saving the same file invoking gksudo automatically.

[Tyriar]

Repros on Ubuntu. Setup:

touch test
sudo chown root test
sudo ~/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code .

Output:

~/temp
❯ sudo ~/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code .
bash: cannot set terminal process group (-1): Inappropriate ioctl for device
bash: no job control in this shell
[VS Code]: detected unresponsive

Process stats:

❯ ps aux | grep VSCode
root      2485  0.0  0.0  58860  3976 pts/0    S+   07:03   0:00 sudo /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code .
root      2486 15.6  0.6 1353480 113552 pts/0  Sl+  07:03   0:22 /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code .
root      2488  0.0  0.1 320284 28052 pts/0    S+   07:03   0:00 /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code --type=zygote --no-sandbox
root      2504  0.5  0.6 459360 105128 pts/0   Sl+  07:03   0:00 /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code --type=gpu-process --channel=2486.0.602618759 --no-sandbox --supports-dual-gpus=false --gpu-driver-bug-workarounds=2,27,30,45,55,57 --disable-accelerated-video-decode --gpu-vendor-id=0x10de --gpu-device-id=0x1187 --gpu-driver-vendor=NVIDIA --gpu-driver-version=352.63 --v8-natives-passed-by-fd --v8-snapshot-passed-by-fd
root      2550  0.1  0.2 916508 46500 pts/0    Sl+  07:03   0:00 /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/resources/app/out/bootstrap --type=SharedProcess
root      2562  105  2.9 2609236 485880 pts/0  Rl+  07:03   2:32 /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code --type=renderer --no-sandbox --lang=en-US --node-integration=true --enable-delegated-renderer --num-raster-threads=2 --gpu-rasterization-msaa-sample-count=8 --content-image-texture-target=3553 --video-image-texture-target=3553 --disable-accelerated-video-decode --channel=2486.1.575172126 --v8-natives-passed-by-fd --v8-snapshot-passed-by-fd
root      2586 58.2  0.5 959572 93820 pts/0    Sl+  07:03   1:23 /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/resources/app/out/bootstrap --type=pluginHost
root      2587  0.1  0.3 912380 49384 pts/0    Sl+  07:03   0:00 /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/Code /home/daniel/tools/VSCode-linux-x64/resources/app/out/bootstrap --type=watcherService
daniel    2824  0.0  0.0  13692  2220 pts/11   R+   07:06   0:00 grep --color=auto VSCode

[Tyriar]

Related issue: #1614
Related user voice feature request: http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/293070-visual-studio-code/suggestions/8915236-visual-code-w-terminal-integrated-and-super-admin

[Tyriar]

A system error occured (EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/home/daniel/.config/Code/User/snippets'): Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/home/daniel/.config/Code/User/snippets'
    at Error (native)
    at Object.fs.mkdirSync (fs.js:799:18)
    at new SnippetsTracker (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/workbench/parts/snippets/electron-browser/snippetsTracker.js:25:20)
    at create (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/base/common/types.js:150:14)
    at file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/instantiation/common/instantiationService.js:193:45
    at AccessLock.runUnlocked (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/instantiation/common/instantiationService.js:31:24)
    at ServicesMap.createInstance (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/instantiation/common/instantiationService.js:192:31)
    at InstantiationService.createInstance (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/instantiation/common/instantiationService.js:243:42)
    at WorkbenchContributionsRegistry.BaseRegistry.instantiate (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/platform.js:42:54)
    at WorkbenchContributionsRegistry.BaseRegistry.setInstantiationService (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/platform.js:38:22)Workbench.startup @ //home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/workbench/browser/workbench.js:145
index.html:26 [uncaught exception]: Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/home/daniel/.config/Code/User/snippets'onError @ index.html:26
index.html:29 Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/home/daniel/.config/Code/User/snippets'
    at Error (native)
    at Object.fs.mkdirSync (fs.js:799:18)
    at new SnippetsTracker (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/workbench/parts/snippets/electron-browser/snippetsTracker.js:25:20)
    at create (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/base/common/types.js:150:14)
    at file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/instantiation/common/instantiationService.js:193:45
    at AccessLock.runUnlocked (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/instantiation/common/instantiationService.js:31:24)
    at ServicesMap.createInstance (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/instantiation/common/instantiationService.js:192:31)
    at InstantiationService.createInstance (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/instantiation/common/instantiationService.js:243:42)
    at WorkbenchContributionsRegistry.BaseRegistry.instantiate (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/platform.js:42:54)
    at WorkbenchContributionsRegistry.BaseRegistry.setInstantiationService (file:////home/daniel/dev/Microsoft/vscode/out/vs/platform/platform.js:38:22)

[Tyriar]

The EACCES errors can be fixed by tweaking permissions since .config is normally only 700: chmod 775 .config/

Once that's passed, vscode load and, gives a warning about how you shouldn't run as root. Only files owned by root can be modified in this instance of vscode.

[Tyriar]

When gksudo google-chrome is run this is presented:

[Tyriar]

This works with Chrome:

sudo mkdir /home/data/chrome-data
gksudo "google-chrome --user-data-dir=/home/daniel/chrome-data"

[Tyriar]

The whole thing is pretty messy after understanding it, it would be better to request sudo acces when a file is saved. Something like this might work? https://www.npmjs.com/package/electron-sudo

[Tyriar]

I've managed to get it working fairly nicely being run with sudo using a custom user data dir, however it hangs unless run as the normal user at least once.

This is how it I can get around it currently:

# First launch, code will create the data dir then hang with no errors in console
sudo ../VSCode-linux-x64/code-oss --user-data-dir=/home/daniel/data-dir .
# Give daniel access to ~/data-dir
sudo chmod -R 777 /home/daniel/data-dir/
# Launches fine as regular user now
../VSCode-linux-x64/code-oss --user-data-dir=/home/daniel/data-dir .
# Remove daniel access
sudo chmod -R 700 /home/daniel/data-dir/
# Launches fine as root user now
sudo ../VSCode-linux-x64/code-oss --user-data-dir=/home/daniel/data-dir .

[Tyriar]

All files seem to be created correctly.

$ sudo tree ~/data-dir/
/home/daniel/data-dir/
├── DevTools Extensions
├── GPUCache
│   ├── data_0
│   ├── data_1
│   ├── data_2
│   ├── data_3
│   └── index
├── Local Storage
│   ├── file__0.localstorage
│   └── file__0.localstorage-journal
├── storage.json
└── User
    └── snippets

The welcome page never comes up though, and the menu bar hangs when I try to open the license.