How to keep digiKam from deleting image files

[Elle Stone]

I selected a bunch of raw files, digiKam stopped responding, I tried
to stop the selection, and somehow must have hit the magic "delete"
key. Which by the way is where? I see references to "delete" and
"trash" in the digiKam options, but I don't see any "delete" button or
option.

Anyway, all of my image files are marked "read only", so why did
digiKam delete/trash these files in the first place? Is there a way to
keep digiKam from ever deleting/trashing any files, ever? (I don't use
digiKam for deleting image files).

Thanks for any advice. I have backups of the deleted files, but I
really would prefer to eliminate the possibility of another errant
accident at the keyboard prompting digiKam to delete my image files.
That really shouldn't happen to read-only files, should it?

Kind regards,
Elle Stone
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[Christoph Siedentop-2]

Hi Elle,

is this running on Linux or Windows? Also what version of digikam are you using?

This is of course not what should happen. But normally the operating system protects files from being deleted.

Best regards,
Christoph

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 9:17 PM, Elle Stone <[hidden email]> wrote:

I selected a bunch of raw files, digiKam stopped responding, I tried
to stop the selection, and somehow must have hit the magic "delete"
key. Which by the way is where? I see references to "delete" and
"trash" in the digiKam options, but I don't see any "delete" button or
option.

Anyway, all of my image files are marked "read only", so why did
digiKam delete/trash these files in the first place? Is there a way to
keep digiKam from ever deleting/trashing any files, ever? (I don't use
digiKam for deleting image files).

Thanks for any advice. I have backups of the deleted files, but I
really would prefer to eliminate the possibility of another errant
accident at the keyboard prompting digiKam to delete my image files.
That really shouldn't happen to read-only files, should it?

Kind regards,
Elle Stone
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[Elle Stone]

On 6/20/13, Christoph Siedentop <[hidden email]> wrote:

> is this running on Linux or Windows? Also what version of digikam are you
> using?
>
I'm using digiKam 3.2 running under Gentoo Linux.

> This is of course not what should happen. But normally the operating system
> protects files from being deleted.
>
Alas it turns out to not be true that under Linux making a file
"read-only" automatically protects the file from being deleted.
"Read-only" only protects the file from being modified. If you own the
folder the image is in, you can delete it. Try for yourself!

Apparently under Windows you can make a file "read-only +
do-not-delete", but not under Linux, because of the way Linux file
permissions work.

There is a workaround for this unfortunate situation, involving
creating a new user, transferring ownership of the to-be-protected
image files to the new user, and setting a "sticky bit" on all the
folders that contain the files to be protected. This protects the
image files from everyone (except the new user, and you need to "sudo
su" to become the new user). So the regular user doesn't have to worry
about accidentally deleting image files. If anyone is interested, I
can post the relevant commands.

It seems to me that having the option to delete images rather than
merely send them to the trash is quite dangerous, nice to have for
those who want it, but it should be something that can be disabled at
will for those who don't want to run the risk. To prevent the
accidental deletion of read-only files for those digikam users who
never, ever use digikam to delete images, would the digiKam developers
be willing to add the user option to completely disable the ability to
delete files using digikam?

Kind regards,
Elle Stone
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[Christoph Siedentop-2]

I do not know what the developers will do, but I don't have this problem. If I press the delete key the images are moved to trash and only if I press alt+delete will they be deleted. 

On Friday, June 21, 2013, Elle Stone wrote:

On 6/20/13, Christoph Siedentop <<a href="javascript:;" onclick="_e(event, &#39;cvml&#39;, &#39;[e-mail]&#39;)">christoph@...> wrote:

> is this running on Linux or Windows? Also what version of digikam are you
> using?
>
I'm using digiKam 3.2 running under Gentoo Linux.

> This is of course not what should happen. But normally the operating system
> protects files from being deleted.
>
Alas it turns out to not be true that under Linux making a file
"read-only" automatically protects the file from being deleted.
"Read-only" only protects the file from being modified. If you own the
folder the image is in, you can delete it. Try for yourself!

Apparently under Windows you can make a file "read-only +
do-not-delete", but not under Linux, because of the way Linux file
permissions work.

There is a workaround for this unfortunate situation, involving
creating a new user, transferring ownership of the to-be-protected
image files to the new user, and setting a "sticky bit" on all the
folders that contain the files to be protected. This protects the
image files from everyone (except the new user, and you need to "sudo
su" to become the new user). So the regular user doesn't have to worry
about accidentally deleting image files. If anyone is interested, I
can post the relevant commands.

It seems to me that having the option to delete images rather than
merely send them to the trash is quite dangerous, nice to have for
those who want it, but it should be something that can be disabled at
will for those who don't want to run the risk. To prevent the
accidental deletion of read-only files for those digikam users who
never, ever use digikam to delete images, would the digiKam developers
be willing to add the user option to completely disable the ability to
delete files using digikam?

Kind regards,
Elle Stone
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--
Christoph Siedentop
0176-399-422-45

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[Elle Stone]

I've never had this problem before, either. But then again I've never
intentionally used digiKam to delete an image OR to put it in the
trash. I just don't use digiKam that way. I don't even have the delete
icon or the trash icon on my toolbar! So I really don't know how I
managed to hit the right keyboard combination. But I did. And bye-bye
a whole bunch of raw files.

My point is all these images that were deleted by digiKam were
read-only. I thought that protected the images from accidental
deletion. A lot of people thing the same thing! IT DOESN'T. This is
how Linux file permissions work.

I never liked the fact that digiKam allows the possiblity of deleting
files. I'm not blaming digiKam! But it would be very nice if there was
an option to completely disable the delete possibility.

Again, fortunately I have backups. And I've taken steps to make sure
digiKam can't delete any files even if I deliberately hit the delete
button.

But being somewhat clumsy at the keyboard, I am very leery of using
digiKam to catalog and find any images other than my write-only
originals (seldom does one select so many images with anything other
than a DAM program, which is why the delete option is so very
dangerous).

Alas this issue obtains with any image management software, unless
that software has the ability to disable the delete option. Anyone
know of such a software?

Elle

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[tosca]

I don't know whether it might be the case for you or not, but quite often I end up moving pictures to another album without being aware of it (typing some key combination by mistake, I guess); thus I sometimes find pictures in a place where they shouldn't be.

Marie-Noëlle

2013/6/25 Elle Stone <[hidden email]>

I've never had this problem before, either. But then again I've never
intentionally used digiKam to delete an image OR to put it in the
trash.

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[Jonas Norlander]

2013/6/21 Elle Stone <[hidden email]>:

> On 6/20/13, Christoph Siedentop <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> is this running on Linux or Windows? Also what version of digikam are you
>> using?
>>
> I'm using digiKam 3.2 running under Gentoo Linux.
>
>> This is of course not what should happen. But normally the operating system
>> protects files from being deleted.
>>
> Alas it turns out to not be true that under Linux making a file
> "read-only" automatically protects the file from being deleted.
> "Read-only" only protects the file from being modified. If you own the
> folder the image is in, you can delete it. Try for yourself!
>
> Apparently under Windows you can make a file "read-only +
> do-not-delete", but not under Linux, because of the way Linux file
> permissions work.

You can make the files immutable with the chattr command. Isn't that
what you are looking for?
It's easy to forget but Linux do support Extended Attributes and Posix
Access Control Lists the normal file permissions.
See chattr, lsattr, setfattr, getfattr, setfacl and getfacl commands
for more info.

/ Jonas
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[Elle Stone]

Jonas and Jean-François, thank you very much for the suggested
solutions, both of which sound like they would work. I implemented a
solution that is somewhat similar to both solutions. I created a new
user called "archival" and gave ownership of the image folders and
also the image files (which are all "read only") to "archival". Then I
set the sticky bit on the folders. So now digiKam can read the image
files and also create and write to xmp sidecar files, but no-one
except the user "archival" can delete or modify the images. When I
need to modify the actual image files, I "su" to being the user
"archival". The idea wasn't mine, it was suggested over in the Gentoo
forums. It does work. DigiKam can't delete my image files.

Posix and extended attributes both sound interesting, but for now the
sticky-bit solution is working pretty well. The only remaining problem
is that I'd like to use digiKam to manage folders of images that
simply can't be made read only and can't be transferred to the user
archival.

As digiKam has the ability to select lots of images for valid image
management reasons, and Marie-Noëlle and I both somehow manage to hit
keyboard combinations that we don't mean to hit (it's nice to know I'm
not the only one!), I am somewhat leery of using digiKam to manage
albums with images that aren't read-only and do need to be modified at
will (although not ever directly by digiKam, which I only use for
image management).

Which is why the option to disable the ability to delete images would
be nice to have for those of us who don't want digiKam to delete any
images, any time, for any reason. Although perhaps I'm the only such
person?

Elle

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[Jean-François Rabasse-2]

On Wed, 26 Jun 2013, Elle Stone wrote:

> Jonas and Jean-François, thank you very much for the suggested
> solutions, both of which sound like they would work.

They work, not just « would » work.:-)

Jonas's suggestion of using files attributes is the best solution when
you need fine control on individual files. (E.g. if you use raw formats
and want to keep them unchanged forever, 'chattr +i' is the solution.)
Read-only mounts is a too global solution, all or nothing, for that.

Be aware of one detail, files attributes get associated with POSIX like
filesystems, ext2, ext3, ext4, and may not be supported on other formats.
So, when you backup folders with protected files on a different filesystem
(though I'm a Linuxian, I often format USB drives partitions under
HPFS/NTFS format to be able to read my images on any Apple or MS-Win
computer), these attributes may get lost during copy.
The day you restore from such a backup, e.g. after a main disk crash,
your protected files are no longer protected and you won't « see » that
and keep on believing your protected files are protected.
Which is no longer true...

> Which is why the option to disable the ability to delete images would
> be nice to have for those of us who don't want digiKam to delete any
> images, any time, for any reason. Although perhaps I'm the only such
> person?

You're not. I never use DK to delete, move, reorganize. My personal
reason is that my folders contain non images associated files (e.g.
GPX tracks logs, text documents with travel notes, etc.) and Digikam
doesn't use/show non images files.
Dolphin does, so I can do consistent moves without leaving orphan
files on the way.

Well, it's up to Digikam developers to comment your suggestion.

My personal opinion is that this could induce negative psychological
side effects.
When you are used to work with such a secured application (« delete is
impossible, so whatever I do/type, I can't get a disaster »), the effect
is to decrease your mental vigilance level. And at the moment you launch
another application, not implemented with this impossible delete, then
you increase the risk of a disaster due to lower vigilance.
We are humans, and human behaviours have laws.:-)

I remain persuaded that a good protection strategy, files attributes,
read-only mounts, special account, etc., that is independent of all
used software applications, will offer you the best security level.

Regards,
Jean-François
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