[🚀 | Feature request]: Workspace lock

[mmmarcos]

What you would like to accomplish

When a workspace is mounted, data is accessible in the file system as a mount point directory. Having all the workspaces mounted by default could expose sensible data that the user does not necessarily need to access at a given time (see discussion in #8355).

Parsec V2 had a toggle button allowing the user to mount/un-mount a given workspace. Most users struggled to understand what that means so this was not ported to V3.

Parsec V3 should still help the user to reduce the perimeter of exposed data as a security best practice and enable the possibility to enable or disable the mount point of a given workspace.

How the feature should work

The idea is to add actions that make more sense to the user:

• 🔒 Lock a workspace

  • Effect: the corresponding workspace directory will be unmounted from the file system.
  • Meaning: data is securely stored in Parsec but cannot be accessed locally.

• 🔓 Unlock a workspace:

  • Effect: the corresponding workspace directory will be (re)mounted in the file system.
  • Meaning: data can be accessed locally and synchronized with Parsec.

These actions should be present in the My workspace page.

⚠️ Careful should be taken when locking a workspace as files could be opened with non-synchronized changes, or there may be a synchronization in progress. If possible to detect, the user should be warned or asked for confirmation.

Task List

• Workspace lock: UI Mockups
• Analysis
• Workspace lock: bindings (if applicable)
• Workspace lock: frontend
• Workspace lock: documentation

[fabienSvtr]

Preview of the what it should looks like:

Lock.Unlock.mov

[Max-7]

I understand this is not a full proposal, just a few things to take into account when discussing this feature:

• Is the page showing the files available (can we explore a workspace)? It could be, we don't need the mountpoint to show it.
• How does the file page looks? We should have a good indication that the workspace is locked, since it will disable some features (open in explorer, open a file, ...)
• Can we still import files? Technically we don't need the mountpoint but it could be counter-intuitive to a user.
• Do we allow file opening using the viewers only? Could be counter-intuitive.
• Can we unlock the workspace from the file page? Could be useful if I'm exploring the workspace and want to open a specific file
• Can we explore the history of a locked workspace and can we restore files? Technically ok but might be confusing.
• Only on one device (stored in the GUI config) or shared accross devices?

[Max-7]

What was discussed:

• the lock/unlock only unmount/mounts the workspace
• no access to the file view while the workspace is locked
• find the right word for it, as this lock is only local and other users won't see the workspace as locked and can still add data