Security errors in Gnome Logs since the last Steam client update

[user1-github]

Since the last Steam client update from September 11, I've been getting this security error in Gnome Logs every time I launch Steam:

E: Unable to acquire bus name "com.steampowered.PressureVessel.LaunchAlongsideSteam".

It doesn't cause any noticeable issues, but is it something to worry about?

I'm on Debian 12.1.0 with Gnome 43.6, Flatpak 1.14.4.

[smcv]

I've been getting this security error in Gnome Logs every time I launch Steam:

E: Unable to acquire bus name "com.steampowered.PressureVessel.LaunchAlongsideSteam".

Do you have a reason that I'm not seeing for describing this as a security error? As far as I can see, it's just an error: a Steam component tried to own a name, wasn't allowed to do it, and logged an error message saying that it couldn't do that.

steampowered.com is another namespace alongside valvesoftware.com that is owned by Valve.

It doesn't cause any noticeable issues, but is it something to worry about?

It is intentional that a component of Steam tries to own this name, so it would probably be a good idea for the com.valvesoftware.Steam packaging to allow at least --own-name=com.steampowered.PressureVessel.*. The ...LaunchAlongsideSteam name is used by containerized games (in the Steam Linux Runtime environment) to run commands in the same execution environment as Steam itself (outside the Steam Linux Runtime).

If some debug/development options are enabled, Steam Linux Runtime games will also try to own names like com.steampowered.App123, so it might be best to use --own-name=com.steampowered.*. Again, steampowered.com is another namespace alongside valvesoftware.com that is owned by Valve.

[user1-github]

Do you have a reason that I'm not seeing for describing this as a security error?

This is how it looks like on my end:

It says "Security", so maybe that's why I mistakenly thought it's a security error.

I wasn't getting this error before I received a Steam client update on September 11, so that's why I reported this.

[smcv]

It says "Security", so maybe that's why I mistakenly thought it's a security error.

I don't know why Gnome Logs thinks this is a security-related message. The messages I see in the Security tab seem to be completely arbitrary.

I wasn't getting this error before I received a Steam client update on September 11

That sounds plausible for the date of the first Steam client beta that had the feature that is using this new bus name.

[smcv]

I don't know why Gnome Logs thinks this is a security-related message. The messages I see in the Security tab seem to be completely arbitrary.

I opened https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-logs/-/issues/71

[Zesko]

I don't know why Gnome Logs thinks this is a security-related message. The messages I see in the Security tab seem to be completely arbitrary.

FYI

Not only Gnome logs, but KDE Plasma too. I clicked the Steam icon in the standard KDE menu to open Steam from Flatpak, I got the same error messages in journalctl -p err -b.

https://github.com/flathub/com.valvesoftware.Steam/issues/1168#issuecomment-1732634752

Interesting, when I launch Steam in the terminal to show the same messages, but these messages do not appear in the journalctl log.

[Zesko]

Try to do https://github.com/flathub/com.valvesoftware.Steam/issues/1168#issuecomment-1741710263 or use Flatseal to fix this issue, the warning messages are gone.

[smcv]

It's normal that those error messages appear: Steam wants to use that bus name for a new feature, and it can't, so it logs an error. It's also normal that they go to whatever is the destination of all of Steam's other output, either the Journal or an interactive terminal.

[g2p]

Here's a workaround for now, until fixed in the flatpak manifest:

flatpak override --user --own-name="com.steampowered.*" com.valvesoftware.Steam