qutebrowser in daemon mode + extras

config.py

c.aliases.update({
    'recycle':  'quit --save _recycle',
    'restart':  'quit --save _restart',
    'shutdown': 'quit --save _shutdown',
})

qutebrowser

#!/bin/bash -eu
set -o pipefail

DAEMON="${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}"/qutebrowser

case "${1:-}" in
		'--daemon')
				shift

				while true; do
						if [ "${1:-}" == '--restore' ]; then
								shift
						else
								mkdir "${DAEMON}"
						fi

						BASE="${DAEMON}" "${0}" --no-daemon --nowindow "${@:-}"
				done
				;;
		'--no-daemon')
				shift

				BASE="${BASE:-$(mktemp -d -p '' qute-nodaemon-XXXXX)}"

				SESSION="${BASE}"/data/sessions
				while true; do
						if ! [ -d "${BASE}"/config ]; then
								cp -a "${HOME}/.config/qutebrowser-${USER}" "${BASE}/config"
						fi

						if ! [ -d "${BASE}"/data ]; then
								cp -a "${HOME}/.local/share/qutebrowser-${USER}" "${BASE}/data"
						fi

						if [ "${SAVED:-}" ]; then
								cat <&${SAVED} > "${SESSION}"/_autosave.yml
								exec {SAVED}<&- && unset SAVED
						fi

						if ! python3 -m qutebrowser -B "${BASE}" "${@}"; then
								case "${BASE}" in
										*"${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}"*)
												mv "${BASE}" "$(mktemp --dry-run --tmpdir='' qute-crash-XXXXX)"

												mkdir "${BASE}"
												continue ;;
										*)
												exit 1 ;;
								esac
						fi

						if [ -e "${SESSION}"/_recycle.yml ]; then
								exec {SAVED}< "${SESSION}"/_recycle.yml

								rm -rf "${SESSION}"/_recycle.yml
								continue
						fi

						if [ -e "${SESSION}"/_restart.yml ]; then
								exec {SAVED}< "${SESSION}"/_restart.yml

								rm -rf "${BASE}"/*
								continue
						fi

						if [ -e "${SESSION}"/_shutdown.yml ]; then
								rm -rf "${BASE}"
								exit 1
						fi

						rm -rf "${BASE}"
						exit 0
				done
				;;
		*)
				until IPC=$(ls "${DAEMON}"/runtime/ipc-*); do
						sleep 0.1 && [ -d "${DAEMON}" ]
				done 2> /dev/null

				ARGS=$(printf %s\\n "${@:-about:blank}")
				jq -c . <<-EOT | socat - "${IPC}"
				  {
				    "args": $(jq -R . <<< "${ARGS}" | jq -s .),
				    "cwd": "${PWD}",
				    "protocol_version": 1,
				    "target_arg": "window"
				  }
				EOT
				;;
esac

Hi @knatsakis,
I am trying to get this working on macOS, but so far I am failing. Maybe you are interested in helping me out?
That would be awsome ;-)

Sure, what is it that doesn't work?

Do you get some error?

Thank you!

If I run ./qutebrowser --daemon I get this error
mkdir: /Users/*****/qutebrowser: File exists

If I delete the ~/qutebrowser I get this error

./qutebrowser --daemon 
./qutebrowser: line 20: @: unbound variable

I now mamaged to run qutebrowser als "kind of" daemon over systemd. But your script seems to be more advanced than simply restarting qutebrowser --nowindow everytime it quits.

I updated the script to:

• remove some stuff not needed for general use
• changed "${@}" to "${@:-}" in line 20

The error you get is probably because MacOS's /bin/bash is pretty old and behaves differently.

I suggest that you either install a new/latest version of bash via homebrew,
or, try this script again, but it may still not work because it hasn't been tested or used with an old bash version.

For reference, my bash version is 5.1.16. I guess anything > 5.0.0 should work.

I now mamaged to run qutebrowser als "kind of" daemon over systemd. But your script seems to be more advanced than simply restarting qutebrowser --nowindow everytime it quits.

One of the nice things this script does, in addition to the systemd solution you mention, is that it supports the restart/recycle/shutdown commands. See the aliases at the top.

• shutdown is pretty much self-explanatory
• restart, restarts without keeping any not-yet-persisted user data (cookies, etc. See below)
• recycle, restarts but keeps non-yet-persisted user data

The other is that, it always starts qutebrowser from a clean state. No cookies, web page data or caches are persisted. I have some user scripts for persisting such data on-demand, on a page by page basis (I could share them if you are interested). This way, I can keep cookies etc., only for few, select, pages where I want to stay logged in. Cookies and other data from any other page gets deleted when the last qutebrowser window closes.

All this works nicely for me, but it is something you may not want or need.

Thank your for the elaboration. I tried the updates put I still get some errors.
But as I read your explanations about the script I guess I am fine running the systemd solution.

Anyway thank you very much for your Help!

This script is really helpful! Is it hard to make all data persist?

I don't completely understand how you made the windows start this fast, but here's what I gathered:

• the IPC and daemon creates new windows without spawning new processes
  • this prevents slow python libs from reloading?
• config and data is loaded from memory rather than files
  • this also is quicker I guess

But if the last point is true; won't that make it hard to have all data persist? I don't know how you solved this in your scripts, but if session data, cookies and cache are stored in a temporary file system, they will not be saved I would imagine.