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HTML rendering created 2025-02-02 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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NAME | DESCRIPTION | FILE FORMAT | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON |
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FLATPAK METADATA(5) flatpak metadata FLATPAK METADATA(5)
flatpak-metadata - Information about an application or runtime
Flatpak uses metadata files to describe applications and runtimes.
The metadata file for a deployed application or runtime is placed
in the toplevel deploy directory. For example, the metadata for
the locally installed application org.gnome.Calculator is in
~/.local/share/flatpak/app/org.gnome.Calculator/current/active/metadata.
Most aspects of the metadata configuration can be overridden when
launching applications, either temporarily via options of the
flatpak run command, or permanently with the flatpak override
command.
A metadata file describing the effective configuration is
available inside the running sandbox at /.flatpak-info. For
compatibility with older Flatpak versions,
/run/user/$UID/flatpak-info is a symbolic link to the same file.
The metadata file is using the same .ini file format that is used
for systemd unit files or application .desktop files.
[Application] or [Runtime]
Metadata for applications starts with an [Application] group,
metadata for runtimes with a [Runtime] group.
The following keys can be present in these groups:
name (string)
The name of the application or runtime. This key is mandatory.
runtime (string)
The fully qualified name of the runtime that is used by the
application. This key is mandatory for applications.
sdk (string)
The fully qualified name of the sdk that matches the runtime.
Available since 0.1.
command (string)
The command to run. Only relevant for applications. Available
since 0.1.
required-flatpak (string list)
The required version of Flatpak to run this application or
runtime. For applications, this was available since 0.8.0. For
runtimes, this was available since 0.9.1, and backported to
0.8.3 for the 0.8.x branch.
Flatpak after version 1.4.3 and 1.2.5 support multiple
versions here. This can be useful if you need to support
features that are backported to a previous stable series. For
example if you want to use a feature added in 1.6.0 that was
also backported to 1.4.4 you would use 1.6.0;1.4.4;. Note that
older versions of flatpak will just use the first element in
the list, so make that the largest version.
tags (string list)
Tags to include in AppStream XML. Typical values in use on
Flathub include beta, stable, proprietary and
upstream-maintained. Available since 0.4.12.
[Context]
This group determines various system resources that may be shared
with the application when it is run in a flatpak sandbox.
All keys in this group (and the group itself) are optional.
shared (list)
List of subsystems to share with the host system. Possible
subsystems: network, ipc. Available since 0.3.
sockets (list)
List of well-known sockets to make available in the sandbox.
Possible sockets: x11, wayland, fallback-x11, pulseaudio,
session-bus, system-bus, ssh-auth, pcsc, cups, gpg-agent,
inherit-wayland-socket. When making a socket available,
flatpak also sets well-known environment variables like
DISPLAY or DBUS_SYSTEM_BUS_ADDRESS to let the application find
sockets that are not in a fixed location. Available since 0.3.
devices (list)
List of devices to make available in the sandbox. This just
expose the devices nodes, it doesn't grant any permission that
the user doesn't already have. Possible values:
dri
Graphics direct rendering (/dev/dri). Available since 0.3.
input
Input devices (/dev/input). Available since 1.15.6.
usb
USB device bus (all device nodes below /dev/bus/usb).
Available since 1.15.11.
kvm
Virtualization (/dev/kvm). Available since 0.6.12.
all
All device nodes in /dev, but not /dev/shm (which is
separately specified). Available since 0.6.6.
shm
Access to the host /dev/shm (/dev/shm). Available since
1.6.1.
filesystems (list)
List of filesystem subsets to make available to the
application. Possible values:
home
The entire home directory. Available since 0.3.
home/path
Alias for ~/path Available since 1.10. For better
compatibility with older Flatpak versions, prefer to write
this as ~/path.
host
The entire host file system, except for directories that
are handled specially by Flatpak. In particular, this
shares /home, /media, /opt, /run/media and /srv if they
exist.
/dev is not shared: use devices=all; instead.
Parts of /sys are always shared. This option does not make
additional files in /sys available.
Additionally, this keyword provides all of the same
directories in /run/host as the host-os and host-etc
keywords. If this keyword is used in conjunction with one
of the host- keywords, whichever access level is higher
(more permissive) will be used for the directories in
/run/host: for example, host:rw;host-os:ro; is equivalent
to host:rw;.
These other reserved directories are currently excluded:
/app, /bin, /boot, /efi, /etc, /lib, /lib32, /lib64,
/proc, /root, /run, /sbin, /tmp, /usr, /var.
Available since 0.3.
host-os
The host operating system's libraries, executables and
static data from /usr and the related directories /bin,
/lib, /lib32, /lib64, /sbin. Additionally, this keyword
provides access to a subset of /etc that is associated
with packaged libraries and executables, even if the
host-etc keyword was not used: /etc/ld.so.cache, (used by
the dynamic linker) and /etc/alternatives (on operating
systems that use it, such as Debian).
To avoid conflicting with the Flatpak runtime, these are
mounted in the sandbox at /run/host/usr,
/run/host/etc/ld.so.cache and so on.
Available since 1.7.
host-etc
The host operating system's configuration from /etc.
To avoid conflicting with the Flatpak runtime, this is
mounted in the sandbox at /run/host/etc.
Available since 1.7.
xdg-desktop, xdg-documents, xdg-download, xdg-music,
xdg-pictures, xdg-public-share, xdg-videos, xdg-templates
freedesktop.org special directories[1]. Available since
0.3.
xdg-desktop/path, xdg-documents/path, etc.
Subdirectories of freedesktop.org special directories.
Available since 0.4.13.
xdg-cache, xdg-config, xdg-data
Directories defined by the freedesktop.org Base Directory
Specification[2]. Available since 0.6.14.
xdg-cache/path, xdg-config/path, xdg-data/path
Subdirectories of directories defined by the
freedesktop.org Base Directory Specification. Available
since 0.6.14.
xdg-run/path
Subdirectories of the XDG_RUNTIME_DIR defined by the
freedesktop.org Base Directory Specification. Note that
xdg-run on its own is not supported. Available since
0.4.13.
/path
An arbitrary absolute path. Available since 0.3.
~/path
An arbitrary path relative to the home directory.
Available since 0.3.
~
The same as home. Available since 1.10. For better
compatibility with older Flatpak versions, prefer to write
this as home.
One of the above followed by :ro
Make the given directory available read-only.
One of the above followed by :rw
Make the given directory available read/write. This is the
default.
One of the above followed by :create
Make the given directory available read/write, and create
it if it does not already exist.
persistent (list)
List of homedir-relative paths to make available at the
corresponding path in the per-application home directory,
allowing the locations to be used for persistent data when the
application does not have access to the real homedir. For
instance making ".myapp" persistent would make "~/.myapp" in
the sandbox a bind mount to "~/.var/app/org.my.App/.myapp",
thus allowing an unmodified application to save data in the
per-application location. Available since 0.3.
features (list)
List of features available or unavailable to the application,
currently from the following list:
devel
Allow system calls used by development-oriented tools such
as perf, strace and gdb. Available since 0.6.10.
multiarch
Allow running multilib/multiarch binaries, for example
i386 binaries in an x86_64 environment. Available since
0.6.12.
bluetooth
Allow the application to use bluetooth (AF_BLUETOOTH)
sockets. Note, for bluetooth to fully work you must also
have network access. Available since 0.11.8.
canbus
Allow the application to use canbus (AF_CAN) sockets.
Note, for this work you must also have network access.
Available since 1.0.3.
per-app-dev-shm
Share a single instance of /dev/shm between all instances
of this application run by the same user ID, including
sub-sandboxes. If the application has the shm device
permission in its devices list, then this feature flag is
ignored. Available since 1.12.0.
A feature can be prefixed with ! to indicate the absence of
that feature, for example !devel if development and debugging
are not allowed.
unset-environment (list)
A list of names of environment variables to unset. Note that
environment variables to set to a value (possibly empty)
appear in the [Environment] group instead.
[Instance]
This group only appears in /.flatpak-info for a running app, and
not in the metadata files written by application authors. It is
filled in by Flatpak itself.
instance-id (string)
The ID of the running instance. This number is used as the
name of the directory in XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/.flatpak where
Flatpak stores information about this instance.
instance-path (string)
The absolute path on the host system of the app's persistent
storage area in $HOME/.var.
app-path (string)
The absolute path on the host system of the app's app files,
as mounted at /app inside the container. Available since
0.6.10.
Since 1.12.0, if flatpak run was run with the --app-path
option, this key gives the absolute path of whatever files
were mounted on /app, even if that differs from the app's
normal app files.
If flatpak run was run with --app-path= (resulting in an empty
directory being mounted on /app), the value is set to the
empty string.
original-app-path (string)
If flatpak run was run with the --app-path option, this key
gives the absolute path of the app's original files, as
mounted at /run/parent/app inside the container. Available
since 1.12.0.
If this key is missing, the app files are given by app-path.
app-commit (string)
The commit ID of the application that is running. The filename
of a deployment of this commit can be found in
original-app-path if present, or app-path otherwise.
app-extensions (list of strings)
A list of app extensions that are mounted into the running
instance. The format for each list item is
EXTENSION_ID=COMMIT. If original-app-path is present, the
extensions are mounted below /run/parent/app; otherwise, they
are mounted below /app.
branch (string)
The branch of the app, for example stable. Available since
0.6.10.
arch (string)
The architecture of the running instance.
flatpak-version (string)
The version number of the Flatpak version that ran this app.
Available since 0.6.11.
runtime-path (string)
The absolute path on the host system of the app's runtime
files, as mounted at /usr inside the container. Available
since 0.6.10.
Since 1.12.0, if flatpak run was run with the --usr-path
option, this key gives the absolute path of whatever files
were mounted on /usr, even if that differs from the app's
normal runtime files.
original-runtime-path (string)
If flatpak run was run with the --runtime-path option, this
key gives the absolute path of the app's original runtime, as
mounted at /run/parent/usr inside the container. Available
since 1.12.0.
If this key is missing, the runtime files are given by
runtime-path.
runtime-commit (string)
The commit ID of the runtime that is used. The filename of a
deployment of this commit can be found in
original-runtime-path if present, or runtime-path otherwise.
runtime-extensions (list of strings)
A list of runtime extensions that are mounted into the running
instance. The format for each list item is
EXTENSION_ID=COMMIT. If original-app-path is present, the
extensions are mounted below /run/parent/usr; otherwise, they
are mounted below /usr.
extra-args (string)
Extra arguments that were passed to flatpak run.
sandbox (boolean)
Whether the --sandbox option was passed to flatpak run.
build (boolean)
Whether this instance was created by flatpak build.
session-bus-proxy (boolean)
True if this app cannot access the D-Bus session bus directly
(either it goes via a proxy, or it cannot access the session
bus at all). Available since 0.8.0.
system-bus-proxy (boolean)
True if this app cannot access the D-Bus system bus directly
(either it goes via a proxy, or it cannot access the system
bus at all). Available since 0.8.0.
[Session Bus Policy]
If the sockets key is not allowing full access to the D-Bus
session bus, then flatpak provides filtered access.
The default policy for the session bus only allows the application
to own its own application ID, its subnames and its own
application id as a subname of "org.mpris.MediaPlayer2". For
instance if the app is called "org.my.App", it can only own
"org.my.App", "org.my.App.*" and
"org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.org.my.App". It is only allowed to talk to
names matching those patterns, plus the bus itself
(org.freedesktop.DBus) and the portal APIs (bus names of the form
org.freedesktop.portal.*).
Additionally the app is always allowed to reply to messages sent
to it, and emit broadcast signals (but these will not reach other
sandboxed apps unless they are allowed to talk to your app.
If the [Session Bus Policy] group is present, it provides policy
for session bus access.
Each key in this group has the form of a D-Bus bus name or prefix
thereof, for example org.gnome.SessionManager or
org.freedesktop.portal.*
The possible values for entry are, in increasing order or access:
none
The bus name or names in question is invisible to the
application. Available since 0.2.
see
The bus name or names can be enumerated by the application.
Available since 0.2.
talk
The application can send messages/ and receive replies and
signals from the bus name or names. Available since 0.2.
own
The application can own the bus name or names (as well as all
the above). Available since 0.2.
[System Bus Policy]
If the sockets key is not allowing full access to the D-Bus system
bus, then flatpak does not make the system bus available unless
the [System Bus Policy] group is present and provides a policy for
filtered access. Available since 0.2.
Entries in this group have the same form as for the [Session Bus
Policy] group. However, the app has no permissions by default.
[Environment]
The [Environment] group specifies environment variables to set
when running the application. Available since 0.3.
Entries in this group have the form VAR=VALUE where VAR is the
name of an environment variable to set.
Note that environment variables can also be unset (removed from
the environment) by listing them in the unset-environment entry of
the [Context] group.
[Extension NAME]
Runtimes and applications can define extension points, which allow
optional, additional runtimes to be mounted at a specified
location inside the sandbox when they are present on the system.
Typical uses for extension points include translations for
applications, or debuginfo for sdks. The name of the extension
point is specified as part of the group heading. Since 0.11.4, the
name may optionally include a tag in the NAME in the name@tag ref
syntax if you wish to use different configurations (eg, versions)
of the same extension concurrently. The "tag" is effectively
ignored, but is necessary in order to allow the same extension
name to be specified more than once.
directory (string)
The relative path at which the extension will be mounted in
the sandbox. If the extension point is for an application, the
path is relative to /app, otherwise it is relative to /usr.
This key is mandatory. Available since 0.1.
version (string)
The branch to use when looking for the extension. If this is
not specified, it defaults to the branch of the application or
runtime that the extension point is for. Available since
0.4.1.
versions (string)
The branches to use when looking for the extension. If this is
not specified, it defaults to the branch of the application or
runtime that the extension point is for. Available since
0.9.1, and backported to the 0.8.x branch in 0.8.4.
add-ld-path (string)
A path relative to the extension point directory that will be
appended to LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Available since 0.9.1, and
backported to the 0.8.x branch in 0.8.3.
merge-dirs (string)
A list of relative paths of directories below the extension
point directory that will be merged. Available since 0.9.1,
and backported to the 0.8.x branch in 0.8.3.
download-if (string)
A condition that must be true for the extension to be
auto-downloaded. As of 1.1.1 this supports multiple conditions
separated by semi-colons.
These are the supported conditions:
active-gl-driver
Is true if the name of the active GL driver matches the
extension point basename. Available since 0.9.1, and
backported to the 0.8.x branch in 0.8.3.
active-gtk-theme
Is true if the name of the current GTK theme (via
org.gnome.desktop.interface GSetting) matches the
extension point basename. Added 0.10.1.
have-intel-gpu
Is true if the i915 kernel module is loaded. Added 0.10.1.
have-kernel-module-*
Is true if the suffix (case-sensitive) is found in
/proc/modules. For example have-kernel-module-nvidia.
Added 1.13.1.
on-xdg-desktop-*
Is true if the suffix (case-insensitively) is in the
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP env var. For example
on-xdg-desktop-GNOME-classic. Added 1.1.1.
autoprune-unless (string)
A condition that must be false for the extension to be
considered unused when pruning. For example, flatpak uninstall
--unused and flatpak update use this information. The only
currently recognized value is active-gl-driver, which is true
if the name of the active GL driver matches the extension
point basename. Available since 0.11.8.
enable-if (string)
A condition that must be true for the extension to be enabled.
As of 1.1.1 this supports multiple conditions separated by
semi-colons. See download-if for available conditions.
subdirectory-suffix (string)
A suffix that gets appended to the directory name. This is
very useful when the extension point naming scheme is
"reversed". For example, an extension point for GTK+ themes
would be /usr/share/themes/$NAME/gtk-3.0, which could be
achieved using subdirectory-suffix=gtk-3.0. Available since
0.9.1, and backported to the 0.8.x branch in 0.8.3.
subdirectories (boolean)
If this key is set to true, then flatpak will look for
extensions whose name is a prefix of the extension point name,
and mount them at the corresponding name below the
subdirectory. Available since 0.1.
no-autodownload (boolean)
Whether to automatically download extensions matching this
extension point when updating or installing a 'related'
application or runtime. Available since 0.6.7.
locale-subset (boolean)
If set, then the extensions are partially downloaded by
default, based on the currently configured locales. This means
that the extension contents should be a set of directories
with the language code as name. Available since 0.9.13 (and
0.6.6 for any extensions called *.Locale)
autodelete (boolean)
Whether to automatically delete extensions matching this
extension point when deleting a 'related' application or
runtime. Available since 0.6.7.
collection-id (string)
The ID of the collection that this extension point belongs to.
If this is unspecified, it defaults to the collection ID of
the application or runtime that the extension point is for.
Currently, extension points must be in the same collection as
the application or runtime that they are for. Available since
0.99.1.
[ExtensionOf]
This optional group may be present if the runtime is an extension.
ref (string)
The ref of the runtime or application that this extension
belongs to. Available since 0.9.1.
runtime (string)
The runtime this extension will be inside of. If it is an app
extension, this is the app's runtime; otherwise, this is
identical to ref, without the runtime/ prefix. Available since
1.5.0.
priority (integer)
The priority to give this extension when looking for the best
match. Default is 0. Available since 0.9.1, and backported to
the 0.8.x branch in 0.8.3.
tag (string)
The tag name to use when searching for this extension's mount
point in the parent flatpak. Available since 0.11.4.
[Extra Data]
This optional group may be present if the runtime or application
uses extra data that gets downloaded separately. The data in this
group gets merged into the repository summary, with the
xa.extra-data-sources key.
If multiple extra data sources are present, their uri, size and
checksum keys are grouped together by using the same suffix. If
only one extra data source is present, the suffix can be omitted.
NoRuntime (boolean)
Whether to mount the runtime while running the
/app/bin/apply_extra script. Defaults to true, i.e. not
mounting the runtime. Available since 0.9.1, and backported to
the 0.8.x branch in 0.8.4.
uriX (string)
The uri for extra data source X. The only supported uri
schemes are http and https. Available since 0.6.13.
sizeX (integer)
The size for extra data source X. Available since 0.6.13.
checksumX (string)
The sha256 sum for extra data source X. Available since
0.6.13.
[Policy SUBSYSTEM]
Subsystems can define their own policies to be placed in a group
whose name has this form. Their values are treated as lists, in
which items can have their meaning negated by prepending ! to the
value. They are not otherwise parsed by Flatpak. Available since
0.6.13.
[USB Devices]
USB devices can be enumerable or hidden by the USB portal as
specified by the keys in this group. The vendor and product ids
are validated by Flatpak, but aren't otherwise used or parsed.
This merely grant the permission to enumerate USB device for use
by the portal. This does give access to the devices. Available
since 1.15.11.
enumerable-devices (string list)
List of enumerable USB devices. Each element is the same
syntax the arguments to `--usb`. Available since 1.15.11.
hidden-devices (string list)
List of hidden USB devices, i.e. to remove the enumarable
devices list. Each element is the same syntax the arguments to
`--nousb`. Hidden devices take precedence over enumerable
devices. Available since 1.15.11.
[Application]
name=org.gnome.Calculator
runtime=org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.20
sdk=org.gnome.Sdk/x86_64/3.20
command=gnome-calculator
[Context]
shared=network;ipc;
sockets=x11;wayland;
filesystems=xdg-run/dconf;~/.config/dconf:ro;
[Session Bus Policy]
ca.desrt.dconf=talk
[Environment]
DCONF_USER_CONFIG_DIR=.config/dconf
[USB Devices]
enumerable-devices=0fd9:*;
hidden-devices=0fd9:0063;
[Extension org.gnome.Calculator.Locale]
directory=share/runtime/locale
subdirectories=true
[Extension org.gnome.Calculator.Debug]
directory=lib/debug
flatpak(1), flatpak-run(1), flatpak-override(1)
1. freedesktop.org special directories
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/xdg-user-dirs/
2. freedesktop.org Base Directory Specification
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html
This page is part of the flatpak (a tool for building and
distributing desktop applications on Linux) project. Information
about the project can be found at ⟨http://flatpak.org/⟩. It is
not known how to report bugs for this man page; if you know,
please send a mail to man-pages@man7.org. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak⟩ on 2025-02-02. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-01-14.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
flatpak FLATPAK METADATA(5)
Pages that refer to this page: flatpak(1), flatpak-build(1), flatpak-build-finish(1), flatpak-override(1), flatpak-run(1)
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HTML rendering created 2025-02-02 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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