Gufw

Why does Gufw launch silverlight?

Asked by phydeaux on 2014-07-09

I use Microsoft Silverlight for watching Netflix. This runs via Pipelight (https://launchpad.net/pipelight).

Whenever I launch Gufw, it in turn makes calls to silverlight. Since Gufw is running as root, this means that Silverlight is launched as root (which makes me extremely nervous).

Why is this?

Here is the terminal output when running gufw:

$ gufw
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] attached to process.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] checking environment variable PIPELIGHT_SILVERLIGHT5_1_CONFIG.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] searching for config file pipelight-silverlight5.1.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] trying to load config file from '/root/.config/pipelight-silverlight5.1'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] trying to load config file from '/etc/pipelight-silverlight5.1'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] trying to load config file from '/usr/share/pipelight/configs/pipelight-silverlight5.1'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] sandbox not found or not installed!
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] using wine prefix directory /root/.wine-pipelight.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] checking plugin installation - this might take some time.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] -------------------------------------------------------
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] WARNING! YOU ARE RUNNING THIS PIPELIGHT PLUGIN AS ROOT!
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] THIS IS USUALLY NOT A GOOD IDEA! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] -------------------------------------------------------
[install-dependency] wine-silverlight5.1-installer is already installed in '/root/.wine-pipelight'.
[install-dependency] wine-mpg2splt-installer is already installed in '/root/.wine-pipelight'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] -------------------------------------------------------
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] WARNING! YOU ARE RUNNING THIS PIPELIGHT PLUGIN AS ROOT!
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] THIS IS USUALLY NOT A GOOD IDEA! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] -------------------------------------------------------
wine: cannot find L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winemenubuilder.exe"
err:wineboot:ProcessRunKeys Error running cmd L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winemenubuilder.exe -a -r" (2)
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] embedded mode is on.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] windowless mode is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] linux windowless mode is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] force SetWindow is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] window class hook is on.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] strict draw ordering is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function CreateWindowExA.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function CreateWindowExW.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function TrackPopupMenuEx.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function TrackPopupMenu.
fixme:advapi:RegisterTraceGuidsW (0x7022a7, 0x7a0120, {aa087e0e-0b35-4e28-8f3a-440c3f51eef1}, 1, 0x68f678, (null), (null), 0x7a0120): stub
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] init successful!
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] OpenGL Vendor: Intel Open Source Technology Center
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] OpenGL Renderer: Mesa DRI Mobile Intel® GM45 Express Chipset x86/MMX/SSE2
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] Your GPU is in the whitelist, hardware acceleration should work.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] using thread asynccall event handling.
java version "1.7.0_55"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea 2.4.7) (7u55-2.4.7-1ubuntu1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.51-b03, mixed mode)

Question information

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Status:
Answered
For:
Gufw Edit question
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Last query:
2014-07-09
Last reply:
2017-07-25
costales (costales) said : #1

Hi phydeaux! :)
Gufw has not to call to Silverlight (?!) I don't understand why it's that behavior :O
Could you reinstall Gufw? Just run this command into a Terminal:
sudo apt-get purge gufw -y ; sudo apt-get install gufw
Tell me the result please :)

phydeaux (a7193507) said : #2

Hi costales

I did as you said, the result is the same. I did not notice before but you can see it is also loading OpenJDK.

I have done some digging. Is it related to this bug? https://github.com/linuxmint/mdm/issues/96

Thanks.

costales (costales) said : #3

Uhm...
Yes, it could be that Mint issue. I'm using the webkit component for the Tutorial :/

The exit of Gufw has to be this:
costales@dev:~$ gufw
costales@dev:~$
As you can see, I was always worried about gufw doesn't dump anything, then all it's OK.

Just for confirm Gufw is OK, could you attach these files?
/usr/share/applications/gufw.desktop
/usr/bin/gufw-pkexec
/usr/bin/gufw

Thanks and best regards!

costales (costales) said : #4

Which Gufw version are you using? I could make a patch for you and test it :)

Sebastian Lackner (slackner) said : #5

Hi,

I am one of the Pipelight developers, and was informed about this issue on #pipelight.

Pipelight installs like any other browser plugin, the only difference to other browser plugins is that it prints a lot more debug output to simplify debugging. Based on the output above I would assume, that gufw also loads every other browser plugin installed on the system: Linux flash, maybe some PDF viewer plugins, Mono, Java, ...

There was a similar issue with a different software some time ago, in this case it was also caused by the fact that Webkit loads them in the background. If possible gufw should tell Webkit not to load any plugins when they are not needed anyway.

Regards,
Sebastian

costales (costales) said : #6

Hi! Thanks a lot for your information Sebastian!
Do you know how to do that? I'm assume that by default is not loading
plugins :O
Best regards!

On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 5:32 PM, Sebastian Lackner <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> If possible gufw should tell Webkit not to load any plugins
> when they are not needed anyway
>

Kiers (kalm77) said : #7

I am freaking out on this (java & silverlight called as root on my system by (of all things) firewall)! I had launched gufw from the Mint Menu, (to check it was working) and a pop up box told me to wait for wine to finish configuring silverlight!!! (or something to this effect)!!

Could you point me to a solution? i am not able to follow if a solution has been presented clearly in the above

costales (costales) said : #8

Hi Kiers,

Gufw is a native Linux app. It's not using java or silverlight.
I think to remember that was an issue about this a few years ago, and
it was by a weird user environment.

Best regards!

Winston (whmesser) said : #9

This problem still exists as of right now. My solution was to uninstall Pipelight and just use the Windows version of Firefox in Wine for any media needs that I used to use pipelight for. I was horrified to see pipelight being run as root after being called by my firewall configuration program. I Googled the problem and it led me here.

Kiers (kalm77) said : #10

This is a travesty. if gufw is "a native linux app" why is pipelight attaching to it?

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask phydeaux for more information if necessary.

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