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libtrash

A shared library which implements a highly configurable "recycle bin" or "trash can" under GNU/Linux

Written by Manuel Arriaga ([email protected]).

Copyright (C) 2001-2020 Manuel Arriaga Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2. See the file COPYING for details.

NOTE: As of January 2024, Manuel has handed over the project to Peter Hyman ([email protected]), and the libtrash project will be managed on Github https://github.com/pete4abw/libtrash .

Version 3.8 (2024/Jan)

Description

libtrash is a shared library which, when preloaded, will intercept calls to a series of GNU libc functions and make sure that, if an attempt to destroy certain files is made, these won't be permanently destroyed but rather moved to a "trash can". It also allows the user to mark certain directories as "unremovable", which means that calls to functions which would result in the loss of files under these directories will always fail, leaving those files untouched in their original locations.

(This last feature is meant as a higher-level substitute for ext2fs' "immutable" flag for use by those of us who rely on other file systems. An important difference is that libtrash allows non-privileged users to use this with their personal files.)

The GNU libc functions which can be overriden/"wrapped" are

  • unlink() / unlinkat();
  • rename() / renameat();
  • fopen() / fopen64();
  • freopen() / freopen64();
  • open() / openat() / open64() / openat64() / creat() / creat64().

You can individually enable / disable each of these "protections"; by default, only calls to the first two functions are intercepted.

Configuring, compiling, installing and activating libtrash

The INSTALL file contains summarized installation instructions that most users can follow.

Configure

$ ./autogen.sh $ ./configure [--enable-debug]

The --enable-debug option should only be used by developers for testing. It will emit a lot of output each time an unlink call is made. Other config variables may be used for fine tuning installation, such as

  • --prefix (default is /usr/local
  • --libdir (default is $(prefix)/lib
  • --docdir (default is **$(prefix)/share/doc/libtrash)
  • --mandir (default is **$(prefix)/share/man)

NOTE: If you want to install libtrash locally as a user, set

  • --prefix=$HOME

Type ./configure --help for all configuration options available.

Compile

$ make

System-wide Install

As root, run

$ make install

For package maintainers, the DESTDIR variable may be used to place installation files in a different directory. e.g.

$ make DESTDIR=/tmp/package install
which will install all files under /tmp/package for later installation.

User Local Install

(only if --prefix has been set in configure (see above))

$ make install

If --prefix has not been set, use DESTDIR

$ make DESTDIR=$HOME install

User configuration file libtrash.conf

Default settings for libtrash can be overridden in the file $HOME/.libtrash. A template for this file with complete descriptions are in
/usr/local/etc/libtrash/libtrash.conf or
/etc/libtrash.conf

To activate user settings, copy the template libtrash.conf file to
$HOME/.libtrash
and edit accordingly.

Activate libtrash

So that calls to the different GNU libc functions are intercepted, you must ensure that it will be "preloaded" whenever a program is about to get started. This is achieved by configuring your shell so that the environment variable LD_PRELOAD is set to the path to the libtrash library.

Assuming your system uses bash (the most popular shell on GNU/Linux systems), that can be done by placing the following line at very beginning ( <= IMPORTANT!) of both ~/.profile as well as ~/.bashrc:

export LD_PRELOAD=[libdir]/libtrash.so
where libdir is the library installation directory.

Additionally, if you have access to the root account on the computer, you probably want to make sure that you will also be covered by libtrash while using the root account. To do so, two more steps are necessary:

  1. In ~/.bashrc, append the following lines (anywhere in that file):

    alias su="su -l" alias sudo="sudo -i"

  2. Add the same "export LD_PRELOAD=..." line above to the very top ( <= IMPORTANT) of both /root/.profile as well as /root/.bashrc.

[Note 1: at least on my current system, for libtrash to be active while you have sudoed into a root shell you must really place the export LD_PRELOAD line above AT THE VERY TOP of /root/.bashrc. The reason for that is a test that stops executing the instructions in that file for non-interactive shells.]

[Note 2: the odds are that you don't need to export LD_PRELOAD on both ~/.bashrc and ~/.profile, but your system's shell configuration and initialization process probably differs from mine and doing it twice won't hurt.]

Testing libtrash

libtrash should now be set up and ready to spare you a lot of headaches. You can test drive it by doing the following (assuming that you didn't change TRASH_CAN to a string other than "Trash"):

  1. create a file called test_file
  2. Open test_file with a text editor, type a few characters and save it.
  3. or at a console prompt, type `echo test > test_file
  4. Run the following commands:
    $ rm test_file
    $ ls Trash/

test_file should now be stored in $HOME/Trash/. But don't be fooled by this example! libtrash isn't restricted to "saving" files which you explicitly deleted with "rm": it also works with your (graphical) file manager, mail user agent, etc...

NOTE 1: Simply "touching" a test file -- ie, "touch test_file" -- and then removing it will no longer put it in the trash can, because libtrash now ignores empty files, since their removal doesn't present a risk of data loss.

NOTE 2: To make sure that you are fully covered even when sudoing into other accounts, make sure you also test deleting a file using a command such as "sudo rm test_file". (Notice that libtrash won't work when sudoing unless you set the alias sudo="sudo -i" recommended above.)

Suspending, resuming and circumventing libtrash

Should you need to temporarily disable libtrash, you can do so by running the command

$ export TRASH_OFF=YES

When you are done, libtrash can be reactivated by typing:

$ export TRASH_OFF=NO

You might make these operations simpler by appending the following two lines to the init file you used in step 5) above (if you are using Bash as your shell):

    alias trash_on="export TRASH_OFF=NO"
    alias trash_off="export TRASH_OFF=YES"

After doing so, you can enable/disable libtrash by typing

$ trash_on

or

$ trash_off

at the prompt.

If you often need to remove one or more files in a definitive way using 'rm', you might wish to define

alias hardrm="TRASH_OFF=YES rm"

After having done so,

hardrm file.txt

will achieve the same effect as

TRASH_OFF=YES rm file.txt

NOTE: I strongly advise AGAINST defining such an alias, because you will probably get into the habit of always using it: at the time you delete a file, you are always sure that you won't need it again... :-) The habit of using that alias effectively makes installing libtrash useless. Unless you wish to effectively do away with the file due to privacy/confidentiality concerns, think instead of how cheap a gigabyte of HD space is! :-)

If you have set the option SHOULD_WARN (see libtrash.conf), running a command while TRASH_OFF is set to "YES" will result in libtrash printing to stderr (at least) one reminder that it is currently disabled.

Note: See file TLDR.md for more detailed information.

Contact

This library was written by Manuel Arriaga. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] with questions, suggestions, bug reports or just a short note saying how libtrash helped you or your organization deploy GNU/Linux in a context where some "user friendliness" in handling file deletions is required.