Bug 691210

Summary: Usability proposal: Save/recover notifications when no user is logged in
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Fdor <fdor6>
Component: kdebase-runtimeAssignee: Than Ngo <than>
Status: CLOSED UPSTREAM QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 14CC: jreznik, kevin, ltinkl, rdieter, rnovacek, ry, smparrish, than
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Last Closed: 2011-04-15 17:50:18 UTC Type: ---
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Description Fdor 2011-03-27 15:33:48 UTC 
Hi, we're adding desktop notifications to a system daemon (smartd), and we've found a problem: If no user is logged in (gdm/kdm is shown), the notification is lost.

We think that some command/way should exist to avoid loosing notifications when nobody is logged in. For example, notifications could be saved and, after the user logs in, recovered and shown.

We currently use the "wall" command to notify the user. It works correctly, but notifications are lost if nobody is logged in (see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=675778#c13 ). With the save/recover idea, notifications would be saved, then the user would log in after some minutes/hours/days, and then the notifications would be recovered and the notification bubbles would be shown to the user.

The proposal consists of adding the notification save/recover idea to the linux notification system. 

Thanks

(Perhaps this is not the right bugzilla component to make the suggestion. If so, please tell the correct component)
Comment 1 Rex Dieter 2011-03-30 19:43:44 UTC 
Not sure something like this is even possible within the current notion of notifications.

One possibility, however, is to write some sort of proxy between smartd and the user session.  smart will write it's own log/notifications, whatever, and the "proxy" which is part of the user session, can look for past/current smartd messages, and pass on the notification.  (Something similar is done for how selinux alerts are handled).
Comment 2 Fdor 2011-04-04 19:56:36 UTC 
Thanks for your response.

You're right, the proposal is probably not possible with the current notification system. And yes, a possible solution is to write a sort of proxy for smartd, with no need of changing the notification system.

But I think that the problem (important notifications being lost) is common to many other programs. I'm sure that there are many system daemons that could generate important notifications that shouldn't be lost. So the problem is general: an asyncronous storage of important notifications should be added to the linux notification system. The program that generates a notification will inject the notification into the notification system, and will choose (with some parameter) if the notification is mandatory:

- If the notification is not mandatory and no users are logged, the notification will be discarded (lost). Same as currently.
- If the notification is mandatory and no users are logged, the notification will be stored by the notification system. Next time a user logs in, the notification will be recovered and shown to the user.

I wrote some details of the idea at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=691208#c2 .

In order to add the proposal to the linux notification system, where should I post the proposal? Perhaps at gnome bugzilla or kde bugzilla? Perhaps at some lower level software bugzilla page? Which one? 

Thanks
Comment 3 Rex Dieter 2011-04-15 17:49:16 UTC 
*** Bug 676021 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 Rex Dieter 2011-04-15 17:50:18 UTC 
I'd recommend xdg.org