Allen Houchins
fa38063590
This pull request addresses a startup issue with Fleet Desktop on openSUSE Leap 16 and similar Linux distributions. The main change is to adjust how Fleet Desktop and key-escrow dialogs are launched to avoid environment variable loss caused by login shell profile scripts. The fix is scoped specifically to openSUSE Leap 16+ to avoid impacting other distributions. **Distribution-specific sudo invocation changes:** * The `-i` (login shell) flag is now omitted from the `sudo` command when launching Fleet Desktop and key-escrow dialogs on openSUSE Leap 16 and newer, preventing environment variables from being lost due to profile script interference. [[1]](diffhunk://#diff-633ab361af6795ef458233819e2806dfba4ca56f684866d956321825b8fd2e91R1) [[2]](diffhunk://#diff-3e8315d9f12512bce490457c5d20bd7c5aebaa2a8e18b1abf50e504815dd7a9dR178-R193) * For all other supported distributions, the previous behavior (using `-i`) is preserved to maintain compatibility and avoid unnecessary re-testing. **Detection logic:** * Introduced a new helper function `isOpenSUSELeap16Plus` in `execuser_linux.go` to detect if the host is running openSUSE Leap 16 or newer by parsing `/etc/os-release`. This ensures the workaround is only applied where necessary. --- **Related issue:** N/A — surfaced via field investigation on openSUSE Leap 16 (arm64). This PR addresses two distinct issues that together prevent Fleet Desktop from working on openSUSE Leap 16, both validated end-to-end on a real Leap 16 (arm64) host. ## 1. Launch reliability — drop `sudo -i` `orbit/pkg/execuser/execuser_linux.go` On Linux, Orbit launches Fleet Desktop with: ``` sudo -n -i -u <user> -H env WAYLAND_DISPLAY=… … FLEET_DESKTOP_DEVICE_IDENTIFIER_PATH=/opt/orbit/identifier … /…/fleet-desktop ``` The `-i` flag makes sudo "simulate initial login" — it runs the target user's shell as a login shell and wraps the rest of the command in `bash --login -c '<escaped>'`. That sources `/etc/profile` and every script in `/etc/profile.d/*` before our `env KEY=val … fleet-desktop` line runs, and shell metacharacters (`=`, `:`, `/`, `.`) get backslash-escaped through the shell layer. On **openSUSE Leap 16 (arm64)**, that indirection causes the inline env-var assignments to not reach `fleet-desktop`, which exits immediately with: ``` FTL missing URL environment FLEET_DESKTOP_DEVICE_IDENTIFIER_PATH ``` Orbit then respawns it every ~15 s in a tight kill-and-respawn loop, so the tray icon never appears. **Fix:** drop `-i` from the sudo invocation. We don't need a login shell: - `-H` already sets `HOME` to the target user. - sudo's default `env_reset` sets `USER` / `LOGNAME` / `SHELL` / `MAIL` and `PATH` to `secure_path`. - All session vars (`WAYLAND_DISPLAY`, `DISPLAY`, `DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS`, `LD_LIBRARY_PATH`) and every `FLEET_DESKTOP_*` var are already passed explicitly via `env KEY=val …`. After the change, sudo `execve()`s `env` directly with no shell layer in between, so `/etc/profile.d` sourcing and shell-escaping are out of the picture. The `runuser -l` /proc/keys-leak regression from PR #32309 does not apply — that was specific to `runuser -l` creating session keyrings; sudo without `-i` doesn't. # Checklist for submitter - [x] Changes file added: `orbit/changes/fleet-desktop-linux-no-login-shell` - [x] Input data is properly validated; untrusted data interpolated into shell scripts/commands is validated against shell metacharacters. - [x] Timeouts are implemented and retries are limited to avoid infinite loops (script's wait loop now bounded at 90s). - [x] If paths of existing endpoints are modified without backwards compatibility, checked the frontend/CLI for any necessary changes — N/A. ## Testing Manual QA needed before merge: - [x] **openSUSE Leap 16 (arm64)** — Fleet Desktop process starts, stays running, env vars present, no FTL respawn loop. Done via `sudo` shim. - [x] **openSUSE Leap 16 (arm64) — extension fallback** — manual tarball install + schema compilation produces a working tray icon (matching what the script automates). - [ ] **Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04** — regression check: Fleet Desktop tray icon still appears, key-escrow zenity dialog still renders, AppIndicator script still installs via the official path. - [ ] **Fedora (recent)** — regression check: same as above. - [ ] **Debian** — regression check: same as above. - [ ] **openSUSE Tumbleweed** — confirm `InstallRemoteExtension` path still works (no fallback path triggered). ## fleetd/orbit/Fleet Desktop - [x] Verified compatibility with the latest released version of Fleet — pure launch-flag change plus a script update; no protocol or schema impact. - [x] If the change applies to only one platform, confirmed that `runtime.GOOS` is used as needed to isolate changes — Go change is in `execuser_linux.go`, only built on Linux. The script is Linux-only by construction. - [ ] Verified that fleetd runs on macOS, Linux and Windows — Linux re-verification pending QA above; macOS/Windows code paths unchanged. - [ ] Verified auto-update works from the released version of component to the new version. ## Notes for reviewers - The tray-icon visibility issue is an OS-side prerequisite (GNOME 3.26+ has no native tray), so the AppIndicator extension is required regardless. Even after installing it, Wayland requires a logout/login to pick up new extensions — this is documented behavior and not specific to the fallback path.
News · Report a bug · Handbook · Why open source? · Art
Open-source platform for IT and security teams with thousands of computers. Designed for APIs, GitOps, webhooks, YAML, and humans.
What's it for?
Organizations like Fastly and Gusto use Fleet for vulnerability reporting, detection engineering, device management (MDM), device health monitoring, posture-based access control, managing unused software licenses, and more.
Explore data
To see what kind of data you can use Fleet to gather, check out the table reference documentation.
Out-of-the-box policies
Fleet includes out-of-the box support for all CIS benchmarks for macOS and Windows, as well as many simpler queries.
Take as much or as little as you need for your organization.
Supported platforms
Here are the platforms Fleet currently supports:
- Linux (all distros)
- macOS
- Windows
- Chromebooks
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Google Cloud (GCP)
- Azure (Microsoft cloud)
- Data centers
- Containers (kube, etc)
- Linux-based IoT devices
Lighter than air
Fleet is lightweight and modular. You can use it for security without using it for MDM, and vice versa. You can turn off features you are not using.
Openness
Fleet is dedicated to flexibility, accessibility, and clarity. We think everyone can contribute and that tools should be as easy as possible for everyone to understand.
Good neighbors
Fleet has no ambition to replace all of your other tools. (Though it might replace some, if you want it to.) Ready-to-use, enterprise-friendly integrations exist for Snowflake, Splunk, GitHub Actions, Vanta, Elastic Jira, Zendesk, and more.
Fleet plays well with Munki, Chef, Puppet, and Ansible, as well as with security tools like Crowdstrike and SentinelOne. For example, you can use the free version of Fleet to quickly report on what hosts are actually running your EDR agent.
Free as in free
The free version of Fleet will always be free. Fleet is independently backed and actively maintained with the help of many amazing contributors.
Longevity
The company behind Fleet is founded (and majority-owned) by true believers in open source. The company's business model is influenced by GitLab (NYSE: GTLB), with great investors, happy customers, and the capacity to become profitable at any time.
In keeping with Fleet's value of openness, Fleet Device Management's company handbook is public and open source. You can read about the history of Fleet and osquery and our commitment to improving the product.
Is it any good?
Fleet is used in production by IT and security teams with thousands of laptops and servers. Many deployments support tens of thousands of hosts, and a few large organizations manage deployments as large as 400,000+ hosts.
Chat
Please join us in MacAdmins Slack or in osquery Slack.
The Fleet community is full of kind and helpful people. Whether or not you are a paying customer, if you need help, just ask.
Contributing 
The landscape of cybersecurity and IT is too complex. Let's open it up.
Contributions are welcome, whether you answer questions on Slack / GitHub / StackOverflow / LinkedIn / Twitter, improve the documentation or website, write a tutorial, give a talk at a conference or local meetup, give an interview on a podcast, troubleshoot reported issues, or submit a patch. The Fleet code of conduct is on GitHub.
What's next?
To see what Fleet can do, head over to fleetdm.com and try it out for yourself, grab time with one of the maintainers to discuss, or visit the docs and roll it out to your organization.
Production deployment
Fleet is simple enough to spin up for yourself. Or you can have us host it for you. Premium features are available either way.
Documentation
Complete documentation for Fleet can be found at https://fleetdm.com/docs.
License
The free version of Fleet is available under the MIT license. The commercial license is also designed to allow contributions to paid features for users whose employment agreements allow them to contribute to open source projects. (See LICENSE.md for details.)
Fleet is built on osquery, nanoMDM, Nudge, and swiftDialog.