keybase / keybase/keybase-issues

Portable install of Keybase client

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#2,826 7 comments 12 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
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Description

I wonder if would be difficult to offer a "portable" install option, where you can just unpack a distributed file and keep everything inside a single directory.

Common use cases are keeping a portable USB drive with all your Keybase install, or in my case, a [QubesOS](https://www.qubes-os.org/) AppVM specific to Keybase, the same way I have one "vault" AppVM for gpg.

Right now, the CLI is already quite portable (I can extract it from the .deb package file, and run it "in-place"). But databases, configuration files and caches seem to be created on the user directory. For my QubesOS use case that is fine, as the AppVM is persisting all files in `~/`, including `~/.config`, `~/.cache`, etc.

Would that require code changes on the CLI and UI, or it is just packaging and preconfiguration?

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Research direction

Start by reviewing the CLI and UI installation paths, including how the package is unpacked and where databases, configuration files, and caches are written. Done would mean a distributed install can be unpacked into one directory and keep the Keybase installation data there, including for the stated QubesOS and USB-drive use cases.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
build-system, cli, tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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