Keepassxc: KeeShare does not detect changes on remote shares

[dssouza-ti]

Expected Behavior

When keeshare is enabled on a group, the share file is saved on a samba share and "Automatically reload the database when modified externally" is checked, saving the database with modifications on the shared group should trigger a reload on every database accessing the share.

Current Behavior

Currently this does not happen. The changes are saved on the share, but it does not reload automatically. In order to load the changes and keep saving in the share, I edit the shared group, change the keeshare option to Import, apply the settings, change it back to synchronize and apply the settings again.

Possible Solution

I don't know if this is related to #3506 (if it is, you can mark this issue as duplicate) and I thought it would not happen after #3612, but apart from that, I don't know how to solve this.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open a file manager on linux and connect to the samba share typing smb://server/share on the location bar:
   

2. Set up keeshare on a group, saving the file on a samba share (The path here is created automatically by gvfs and its the same every time for the same share):
   

3. Do the same thing on another Linux machine.

4. In one machine, modify the shared group and save the database.
5. Verify that the share file was modified (I usually do that by checking the last modified time).
6. Check the other machine and see that the change was not auto-reloaded.
7. Edit the shared group, change the keeshare option to import, apply, change back to synchronize and apply again.
8. See that now the changes were imported correctly.

Context

I have a team that uses the same database on KeePass2 on a samba share utilizing the bidirectional sync option. When trying to move from KeePass2 to KeePassXC, we ran some tests and found this issue.

The main problem for us is not the fact that we have to import manually for it to work, but that if more then one person saves the file before importing, the share file is overwritten and the first changes are lost. Data loss because of not importing before saving is something that does not happens with bidirectional sync, so we can't move from KeePass2 yet.

Debug Info

KeePassXC - Version 2.5.0-snapshot
Build Type: Snapshot
Revision: a8c10cd

KeePassXC - Also tested with stable version 2.5.0 from the Ubuntu PPA and got the same results.

Qt 5.12.4
Debugging mode is disabled.

Operating system: Ubuntu 19.10
CPU architecture: x86_64
Kernel: linux 5.3.0-19-generic

Operating system: Also tested with Ubuntu 18.04 with Kernel 5.0 and got the same results.

Enabled extensions:

• Auto-Type
• Browser Integration
• SSH Agent
• KeeShare (signed and unsigned sharing)
• YubiKey

Cryptographic libraries:
libgcrypt 1.8.4

[droidmonkey]

This is because the file hash check is only done for the main database. I agree it needs to occur on the keeshare file as well. KeeShare uses the BulkFileWatcher, which I believe they should just use the same FileWatcher class that the main db uses.

[dssouza-ti]

Is this something trivial to implement? Do you think this could be out in 2.5.1?

[droidmonkey]

I'm aiming for 2.5.2 at this point

[jbjhjm]

We are accessing a database located on a local server available via network with a mix of windows and osx computers. I'm not sure if it is the same bug as I have no idea about samba protocol. But we're experiencing the same behavior, when the database is being updated, KeepassXC running on other devices won't notice.

Edit: Short research on samba/smb, seems windows network drives use smb, too.

[Bruceforce]

I'm experiencing the same issue even with local paths. So I don't think this is smb / remote related.

[MountainX]

I am experiencing this issue with NFS shares. When one user sets up KeeShare as import and the other user as export, KeeShare works as expected. But when both users set the type to Synchronize, nothing is shared / synchronized in either direction.
I'm using KeePassXC version 2.5.1 on Linux

[veehexx]

I'm aiming for 2.5.2 at this point

still having the same issue in 2.5.2, so i assume you had other priorities. If you did get the issue fixed, then the issue still appears to be present. Initial configuration of keeshare shows all entries in the kdbx.share file, but subsequent entries do not get synced (this is 2x windows10 machines with mapped drive smb share).

[droidmonkey]

Unfortunately I decided not to touch the KeeShare feature for 2.5.2 since I could have broke it worse then fixing it. This is still on my radar.

[veehexx]

@droidmonkey this appears to be working on the current 2.5.4 release (shared between win10 & Fedora31 with 'syncronize' type).
Since we're intended to use KeeShare feature in a work environment for 4 man team and move away from our KeePass2+plugins method, it'd certainly give us a bit of confidence if you could put your thoughts into KeeShares current state - do you consider it stable now or do you still have work to do in reguard to this bug report?

edit: looks like it might of been my synced kdbx. had keeshare folder in my personal kdbx and appeared to be synced between my kit. doing unique kdbx per-device and keeshare between them all doesnt seem to be syncing (and as per original report). Sorry for any confusion or false hope!

[droidmonkey]

I have been thinking about it and made many improvements in 2.6 around database file handling. No promises but this might be much easier now.