At last, the USB portal originally authored by @refi64 in 2021, later continued by Georges Stavracas in 2023, and finalized by @hub, has been merged!

The USB portal allows sandboxed formats like Flatpak to access USB devices without poking holes in the sandbox. This is great for security, as accessing USB devices will now need to be explicitly granted by the user.

Now we just need to wait for implementers to implement them in their respective portal implementations, starting with GNOME: gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/xdg-des…

The documentation for the USB portal is available on the xdg-desktop-portal website: flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-…

#Flatpak #Security #GNOME

Usb

Description: Portal for USB device access This interface lets sandboxed applications monitor and request access to connected USB devices. Applications should prefer specialized portals for specific...

^{XDG Desktop Portal}