Is CKAN safe?

[Mister Spock]

I played KSP1 with many mods for hundreds of hours, and I always installed mods manually. This time I thought I'd try CKAN, so I downloaded it from its Github, double-clicked CKAN, and then got asked a question about admin authority for URLs. I said yes, and then a popup box informed me I was giving CKAN too much authority. I was prompted to dismiss this by pressing any key, and so I did, but now I was nervous. Then CKAN (or something?) started loading text into a window, and I closed that and quit. I can't find CKAN installed on my PC.

Is CKAN safe? Why did I get that warning message about giving it too much authority? Did I do something wrong? After this unnerving start, I'm inclined to return to my usual practice of installing mods manually, which was rarely ever a problem -- though updating them is admittedly annoying.

[Cytauri]

5 minutes ago, Mister Spock said:

I played KSP1 with many mods for hundreds of hours, and I always installed mods manually. This time I thought I'd try CKAN, so I downloaded it from its Github, double-clicked CKAN, and then got asked a question about admin authority for URLs. I said yes, and then a popup box informed me I was giving CKAN too much authority. I was prompted to dismiss this by pressing any key, and so I did, but now I was nervous. Then CKAN (or something?) started loading text into a window, and I closed that and quit. I can't find CKAN installed on my PC.

Is CKAN safe? Why did I get that warning message about giving it too much authority? Did I do something wrong? After this unnerving start, I'm inclined to return to my usual practice of installing mods manually, which was rarely ever a problem -- though updating them is admittedly annoying.

CKAN was confusing to use at first for me, but it really is fine once you get a handle on it. It just pulls the downloads from the same mod pages that you would download manually (for example SpaceDock and Github), so it is extremely safe, as long as the mod's download link is safe (which 99% of the time it is). It a pleasure even, saving me hours of downloading the mods manually. Very few mods are not be able to be installed using CKAN (GU for example) as those mods require you to choose the configs on how you want it to run.  To answer your comment about the text in a window, its just CKAN loading in, as it shows you what its doing. Other mod applications for other games do this as well (BeamNG's Multiplayer mod for example). If you have any more problems, you should ask @HebaruSanfor answers (sorry Hebaru for pinging ya). HebaruSan is the current person to ask as Hebaru moderates the program. In conclusion, I insist that you use CKAN as it is really nice to use and way easier than downloading mods manually. Have a great day, fly safe! 

[Kerbart]

It's harmless — check out this thread for more info:
 

 

[Mister Spock]

Thanks for your replies. So after I download the ckan.exe and double-click it, should I agree to its request to give it admin authority?

[Cytauri]

9 minutes ago, Mister Spock said:

Thanks for your replies. So after I download the ckan.exe and double-click it, should I agree to its request to give it admin authority?

Yes, its just a precautionary measure that Windows does for any .exe from the internet.

[Mister Spock]

20 minutes ago, Cytauri said:

Yes, its just a precautionary measure that Windows does for any .exe from the internet.

Hmm, I didn't mean the Windows blue warning screen that says it "protected your PC" and then lets you run the file anyway. Rather, after that, CKAN itself asked whether I wanted to give it certain rights so it could find URLs -- then after I did so, it admonished me that I'd given it too much power. Maybe it was joking?

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, Mister Spock said:

got asked a question about admin authority for URLs.

I'm curious about this. Was it a popup from your browser, or Windows itself? This doesn't sound like something CKAN itself does.

1 hour ago, Mister Spock said:

Why did I get that warning message about giving it too much authority? Did I do something wrong?

Sort of, yes. You shouldn't run CKAN as an administrator user, because it doesn't need that access to function, and there's always a risk in giving a program excessive privileges. This was something that CKAN has always checked on Linux, and the check was expanded to Windows platforms recently. Don't worry, plenty of folks have found it confusing so far. The best solution is to run CKAN as a non-administrator user, either by creating a new non-administrator user or removing administrator access from your usual user. If you really don't want to do either of those things, a workaround for experts is described here:

• https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/issues/3956#issuecomment-1873016474

1 hour ago, Cytauri said:

Very few mods are not be able to be installed using CKAN (GU for example) as those mods require you to choose the configs on how you want it to run. 

In fact, GalaxiesUnbound was on CKAN for a while, but was removed because its author changed his or her mind and requested for it to be removed. It had nothing to do with choosing configs.

42 minutes ago, Mister Spock said:

So after I download the ckan.exe and double-click it, should I agree to its request to give it admin authority?

CKAN does not request admin authority, and you should not run CKAN as an administrator. Can you share a screenshot of what you're seeing?

OK, I looked up the URL handler message, and found this:

Quote

CKAN requires permission to add a handler for ckan:// URLs.

Do you want to allow CKAN to do this? If you click no you won't see this message again.

This isn't about admin access; it's just asking if you want it to register ckan:// URLs for your user. It should also be impossible for this to appear before the admin user error, because the GUI won't even start if that error appears.

Edited January 10 by HebaruSan

[Cytauri]

8 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

In fact, GalaxiesUnbound was on CKAN for a while, but was removed because its author changed his or her mind and requested for it to be removed. It had nothing to do with choosing configs.

Wow, didn't know that, thanks for letting me know! 

[Mister Spock]

Thanks for your reply. I think things are good now, but I'm not entirely sure.  I've used CKAN to install several mods, and they work great in KSP. What a wonderful utility! But yes, there were some troubling messages during installation, and I still get a worrisome popup every time I run CKAN.

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

OK, I looked up the URL handler message, and found this:

This isn't about admin access; it's just asking if you want it to register ckan:// URLs for your user. It should also be impossible for this to appear before the admin user error, because the GUI won't even start if that error appears.

I answered "yes" to this question, and then Windows asked me: "ckan.exe wants to make changes to your computer. Yes or no?" The first time I ran CKAN, I said "yes," and then a popup window -- it looked like  a DOS Box -- admonished me that I really shouldn't give privileges to CKAN, that it's dangerous to do so. Then CKAN started loading its registry in its own window, but I panicked and closed it.

Just now I tried again. I ran the ckan.exe, again said "yes" to the URL question, but this time said "No" when asked whether I wanted to allow ckan.exe to make changes to my computer. This time CKAN went ahead and started its registry thing without admonishing me about behaving recklessly. I installed some mods, and they work great. But now every time I run CKAN, I say "no" when asked if I want it to make changes to my computer. Then I see a DOS Box that says this:

Quote

10122 [1] ERROR CKAN.GUI.URLHandlers (null) - There was an error while registering the URL handler for ckan:// - The operation was canceled by the user
10137 [1] ERROR CKAN.GUI.URLHandlers (null) -    at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartWithShellExecuteEx(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
   at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
   at CKAN.GUI.URLHandlers.RegisterURLHandler(GUIConfiguration config, IUser user)

Shoudl I be saying "yes" about changes to my computer? Either way, is this anything to worry about?
 

Edited January 10 by Mister Spock
typos; clarity

[HebaruSan]

13 minutes ago, Mister Spock said:

I answered "yes" to this question, and then Windows asked me: "ckan.exe wants to make changes to your computer. Yes or no?" The first time I ran CKAN, I said "yes," and then a popup window -- it looked like  a DOS Box -- admonished me that I really shouldn't give privileges to CKAN, that it's dangerous to do so. Then CKAN started loading its registry in its own window, but I panicked and closed it.

Thanks for the details, I see what's happening now! That URL handler thing does need admin access in some cases, which trips the admin user check incorrectly. Thanks for the report! I'll make a note to get this fixed in a future release.

For now, you can say "No" if it asks you that again. The error is harmless, and probably nobody uses this URL functionality anyway.

[Mister Spock]

2 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Thanks for the report! I'll make a note to get this fixed in a future release.

Glad I could help! And thank you for your work on CKAN. It's wonderful, and it's effortless to use. I shouldn't have waited so long to try it!

Thanks again.