How to stop and remove the gvfs-metadata service on your Ubuntu system
The gvfs system that comes with the Gnome and MATE desktops also saves metadata about the users web download history. This is interesting, I thought only Firefox saved your download history, but gvfs saves this too.
Use this command to see the saved list of all downloaded files.
strings ~/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home | grep "http://" |
I do not know how often this is updated, but it is something to keep an eye on.
Windows saves a lot of information about the users session too.
strings swapfile.sys | grep "http://" |
Give the above command a try and this allows the user to see all text saved in the Windows pagefile.
The ~/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/ directory also has files such as these.
-rw------- 1 jason jason 136 Aug 23 2017 uuid-2253b90a-2608-4939-917d-85e1dbcbeebb -rw-r--r-- 1 jason jason 32768 Aug 23 2017 uuid-2253b90a-2608-4939-917d-85e1dbcbeebb-9fd88e92.log -rw------- 1 jason jason 716 Mar 10 09:18 uuid-43A834795C9D6F27 -rw-r--r-- 1 jason jason 32768 Mar 10 09:18 uuid-43A834795C9D6F27-8bd419bb.log -rw------- 1 jason jason 472 Mar 8 10:16 uuid-45DADA0064F733EF -rw-r--r-- 1 jason jason 32768 Mar 8 10:16 uuid-45DADA0064F733EF-7bddfd28.log -rw------- 1 jason jason 136 Jan 16 09:45 uuid-466ED68F6ED676E1 -rw-r--r-- 1 jason jason 32768 Jan 16 13:49 uuid-466ED68F6ED676E1-006f11c9.log -rw------- 1 jason jason 1896 Nov 5 21:41 uuid-4AD44F236B9F5FEA -rw-r--r-- 1 jason jason 32768 Nov 5 21:41 uuid-4AD44F236B9F5FEA-d7249740.log -rw------- 1 jason jason 3708 Feb 21 11:59 uuid-4C1E66AD1E66902E -rw-r--r-- 1 jason jason 32768 Feb 21 11:59 uuid-4C1E66AD1E66902E-b4debce8.log -rw------- 1 jason jason 1668 Mar 10 09:22 uuid-5480-272E -rw-r--r-- 1 jason jason 32768 Mar 10 09:22 uuid-5480-272E-8f9e55e7.log -rw------- 1 jason jason 352 Oct 26 12:13 uuid-707B-A3DF -rw-r--r-- 1 jason jason 32768 Oct 26 12:13 uuid-707B-A3DF-ea4a8f4f.log |
These files contain file listings in some cases, especially this one.
~/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/uuid-4C1E66AD1E66902 |
A good reason to not use a desktop environment that uses the gvfs-metadata service.
Find the PID of the gvfs-metadata process.
jason@Yog-Sothoth:~/Documents$ ps axu | grep gvfs jason 4947 0.0 0.0 21448 1084 pts/0 S+ 22:27 0:00 grep gvfs jason 25403 0.0 0.0 291804 7172 ? Ssl 18:43 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd jason 25408 0.0 0.0 415988 5364 ? Sl 18:43 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-fuse /run/user/1000/gvfs -f -o big_writes jason 25541 0.0 0.0 658624 9092 ? Ssl 18:43 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-udisks2-volume-monitor jason 25573 0.0 0.0 275860 5464 ? Ssl 18:43 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-mtp-volume-monitor jason 25590 0.0 0.0 288496 6032 ? Ssl 18:43 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor jason 25618 0.0 0.0 273940 6060 ? Ssl 18:43 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-goa-volume-monitor jason 25674 0.0 0.0 375324 7544 ? Ssl 18:43 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-afc-volume-monitor jason 25703 0.0 0.0 367932 7388 ? Sl 18:43 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-trash --spawner :1.2 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/0 jason 25758 0.0 0.0 202916 6616 ? Ssl 18:44 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-metadata jason 30404 0.0 0.0 370420 7400 ? Sl 21:15 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-network --spawner :1.2 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/2 jason 30435 0.0 0.0 381112 7340 ? Sl 21:15 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-dnssd --spawner :1.2 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/5/5 |
Run this command to kill it.
sudo kill -9 25758 |
Then prevent it from running again.
sudo chmod -x /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-metadata |
If it is updated by apt, it might start again, so check this with the ps command, and do this again to stop it.