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mloman
Asked: 2012-03-13 07:25:08 +0800 CST

Strange connections by gvfsd-http --spawner

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For a little while now, a strange connection has been showing up on my netstat made by the command:

/usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-http --spawner :1.1 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/2

By the time I notice it, the connection is always at the closed state. Every time I trace the IP address, it usually says that no website is registered.

I am unsure what activated this. It could be one of my browsers (Chrome and Firefox). I'm getting a little worried about this.

Could someone clue me in to what this could possibly be, and how to prevent the connection.

gvfs connection netstat

4 Answers

  1. If the command

    sudo watch netstat -tonp

    shows a lot of connections caused by gvfs directly after booting, then you can consider to remove zeitgeist, geoclue, and/or ubuntu-one. You can also consider to deactivate the rhythmbox lastfm-plugin. As I don't need these programs I decided to remove them all and after the next boot, all strange gvfs connections disappeared.

    The following page shows you how to remove some of these applications.

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2000108

    Be aware, that Zeitgeist is an essential part of Unity! So don't remove it, if you are using Unity.

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  2. gvfsd is your Gnome Virtual File System. There is a fairly old bug that causes it to leave connections in the CLOSE_WAIT state for an undefined amount of time. It seems to be more an issue with RhythmBox more than another other program I've seen.

    Some sources:

    Ubuntu forums

    Ubuntu forums 2

    • 1

  3. This will help you I think, so take a look:
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/571970

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  4. I found that gvfsd-http was connecting to a server called backoo.canonical.com

    tcp  |  1  |  192.168.1.108:33427  |  backoo.canonical.com:www LAST_ACK

    This was an IP-address of: 91.189.94.41 It would show up whenever I ran netstat -tu.

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