Why cannot find read /run/user/1000/gvfs even though it is running as root?
You aren't doing anything wrong, and there's nothing to fix. /run/user/$uid/gvfs or ~$user/.gvfs is the mount point for the FUSE interface to GVFS. GVFS is a virtual filesystem implementation for Gnome, which allows Gnome applications to access resources such as FTP or Samba servers or the content of zip files like local directories. FUSE is a way to implement filesystem drivers as user code (instead of kernel code). The GVFS-FUSE gateway makes GVFS filesystem drivers accessible to all applications, not just the ones using Gnome libraries.
Managing trust boundaries with FUSE filesystems is difficult, because the filesystem driver is running as an unprivileged user, as opposed to kernel code for traditional filesystems. To avoid complications, by default, FUSE filesystems are only accessible to the user running the driver process. Even root doesn't get to bypass this restriction.
If you're searching for a file on local filesystems only, pass -xdev to find. If you want to traverse multiple local filesystems, enumerate them all.
find / /home -xdev -name ngirc
If the file has been present since yesterday, you may try locate ngirc instead (locate searches through a file name database which is typically updated nightly).
If you do want to traverse the GVFS mount points, you'll have to do so as the appropriate user.
find / -name ngirc -path '/run/user/*/gvfs' -prune -o -path '/home/*/.gvfs' -prune -o -name ngirc -print
for d in /run/user/*; do su "${d##*/}" -c "find $d -name ngirc -print"; done
It's a fuse issue. No user except the owner can read. To work around the default configuration, try enabling the user_allow_other option. This option is specified by adding it to /etc/fuse.conf. It has no value, just specify the option on a blank line.
this is an old thread but in gnome bug reports it is a recent open issue so it may be of some use to anyone searching for hours for a solution to fix gvfs-fuser issues - which all seem to be tightly related.
Error Msg from meld:
Error copying '/media/root/5FDA03906F33F217/SAVE/rsyncTEST-usb/allusers' to '/run/user/0/gvfs/ftp:host=192.168.0.103/var/ftp/ftpd/images/PersistenceUSBs/rsync-meld/allusers'
[Errno 95] Operation not supported: '/run/user/0/gvfs/ftp:host=192.168.0.103/var/ftp/ftpd/images/PersistenceUSBs/rsync-meld/allusers'.
I encountered the gvfs-fuser issue attempting to use meld/diff/kdiff over ftp. Seems the problem is between fuser and gvfs. The problem seems not to occur in 3.15.1 but begins being reported in 3.15.2.(the new python ver?) Solution is a workaround not a fix - files/directories will copy but error is still displayed.
Christopher's answer defines the problem and provides the solution.
Another possible solution is using sshfs (see this comment and this thread). For more information on gvfs-commands, see What is the difference between gvfs commands and common commands like cat, ls, cp?
Possibly-related bugs include GNOME #317875 and GNOME #768281.