This is alarming.
(Dialog pops up randomly. I’m on Fedora 40, Plasma 6.1, and Wayland. “An application”.)
Lassie, I already checked the well. What are you barking at?
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Serious question: is there a way to tell what application is making this request? What feature of what software responds to these requests and generates this dialog? Seeing this pop up out of nowhere is insane.
This is the permission dialog you get when you enable the Remote Desktop RDP server. It is KDE’s implementation of the Remote Desktop portal.
It is brand new and will require some more work be good, and yes - describing which application asked for the remote control is probably a good idea.
I’m certain I wouldn’t have voluntarily enabled any VNC or RDP server. I’m even cagey about sshd on this laptop. I can’t even find one of those in the list of installed software…
I’m not sure I understand the role of the Portal API, but would this be a Flatpak or other sandboxed program asking for an entitlement to get special access to input devices – as opposed to a server receiving an incoming network connection?
If this is indeed the KRDP remote desktop service, then it isn’t an application that was installed. You’d find it in the system settings under the Remote Desktop category.
Yes - it’s a local application that requested to control input devices using the XDG portal “Remote Desktop” API. I haven’t seen this dialog in any connection other than the Plasma remote desktop service, so I cannot guess as to what application has requested this access.
It may be a good idea to open a ticket at bugs.kde.org about the issue that the “Remote control requested” dialog does not report which application has requested the access.
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There is already a bug report about this issue here: 480412 – "Remote control requested" dialog from KDE Connect doesn't show source of the request when kdeconnect was started via DBus
That report suggests that it could be KDE Connect.
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I could be blind or forgetful, but I don’t see any Remote Desktop category or item in System Settings…
Either way, I think we have a winner!
I was experimenting with KDE Connect. It’s good to see they’re already aware of the issue. Thanks very much for the help.
This popup happens in wayland for me when starting proton games, it does not happen with X11.
I removed KDE connect and I don’t have any remote desktop category in System settings.
It’s very annoying.
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The “remote control” prompt is new for Plasma 6 (I think actually 6.1, but I’m not sure) and as noted previously is part of the XDG Desktop Portal API that is not used on X11 because it’s part of “we want the desktop to be secure from potentially malicious apps” philosophy of Wayland while X11 security police is more like “meh 
”.
And yes - it’s quite annoying. I don’t think it should request permission every boot and for the same app again and again, and it shouldn’t have an always visible icon in the system tray. But it’s still early days for this component and I’m sure it will improve.
On a side note, this feature breaks UI tests (e.g., tests written in Java with AssertJ Swing).
Even choosing to allow the access, tests still fail
Just, since the thread’s here, I also have noticed I get this prompt when I use the (default) three-finger gesture to switch virtual desktops. Using all four fingers, I don’t get the prompt.
I’m pretty sure the four-finger gesture comes from libinput-gestures, if that’s the program I’m thinking of, so that might make sense. I had it set up running some earlier version of Fedora, upgraded, and then Plasma 6 came along and started handling three-finger gestures separately from libinput-gestures.
As notifications go, the whole point would be to enable me, the user, to refuse a program access it was trying to get… That’s what makes this weird.
Concerning UI tests that fail in my context (Java AssertJ Swing), just clicking “Share” is not enough: there are also some System Settings (Applications Permissions for X11 applications) to change.
I blogged about that (but I can’t still post links; the title is “Problems with xdg-desktop-portal-kde as well”), just in case.
I can post links now, here it is
I have the same issue when running VMware Workstation (installed from AUR on Arch), this dialog is spammed in a loop without any information who is requesting the control (and why “remote”??? I was really scared when it first appeared, like someone was trying to gain access to my computer remotely…).
This is the permission dialog you get when you enable the Remote Desktop RDP server.
It’s not that, I have Remote Desktop RDP server disabled.
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You also get this when other things try to use the “shared desktop” portal. KDEConnect is one of such things that people had trouble with.
The current Plasma version 6.2.4 has more details in the popup, and there is some more work on this in 6.3.
Thanks for the reply! But I’m already on 6.2.4 and the last time this triggered it didn’t have any details.
What’s the “shared desktop” portal? And why would VMware request access to it? What permissions/possibilities does it give to the app?
I don’t know if there’s any chance for the “right people” to see this, but, it’s baffling that UI this bad got released and has remained unfixed for this long.
By and large, I’ve got positive things to say about KDE, but this should have never gone anywhere near “production” until it was developed enough to cover the bare minimum functionality necessary to at least produce a dialog box containing the bare minimum information needed for the user to interact with it. Right? Is KDE ok? (Do I misunderstand the development model and need to blame Fedora instead?)
That’s not how free software development work. In free software we release early and release often. “Not great” functionality is better than no functionality. If we’d wait until the UI is perfect, Plasma 6 would not have support for desktop sharing, and that would be very problematic.
In have no idea - I don’t even know what VMWare product you’re are talking about. I assume that a VMWare agent running on a VM guest may want to access the “remote desktop” portal to move the mouse and press keys to do display integration why the host.
That’s my point though. This isn’t “not great”; it’s detrimental. In its current state, it’d be markedly better if it didn’t exist at all. It has zero value for its intended functionality, and negative value for user experience, in some cases, breaking use cases, like if you land the wrong side of a Steam flatpak.
I think your answer fits perfectly for KDE’s multitouch gesture support. That feature is narrowly a net positive, not finished, has some issues, and needs more functionality. But it’s a nascent feature that deserves to exist.
This notification is half a feature that does not deserve to exist, and would serve users better if it was completely disabled until it’s closer to done. Somebody injected brokenness into a bunch of people’s desktops and then left it there.
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