[Bug 2130670] [NEW] kio_http_cache_cleaner automatically connects to a network resource

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Public bug reported:

Looking at currently established connections, I was surprised to see a non-browser and not-systemupdate process establish a connection to a remote host. The process in question is kio_http_cache_cleaner.
Browser is firefox, but firefox didn't have any open connection at that time. If kio_http_cache_cleaner is just cleaning a cache (presumably of a kde-related program), why does it establish a remote connection?

user at laptop:~$ ss -ntp
State                      Recv-Q                 Send-Q                                  Local Address:Port                                       Peer Address:Port                 Process                                                
CLOSE-WAIT                 74                     0                                      192.168.0.231:34402                                     146.75.118.49:443                   users:(("kio_http_cache_",pid=107087,fd=50))          
user at laptop:~$ ps auxww|grep cache
user  107087  0.0  0.1 153360 20484 ?        Sl   Okt28   4:28 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kio_http_cache_cleaner
user  319010  0.0  0.0   6592  2300 pts/1    S+   20:13   0:00 grep --color=auto cache
user at laptop:~$ dpkg -S /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kio_http_cache_cleaner
kio: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/kf5/kio_http_cache_cleaner

Unfortunately, documentation for kio_http_cache_cleaner seems to be
really sparse (read: couldn't find anything except a few forum entries),
so I'm not sure what it really does and if it needs network access.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 24.04
Package: kio 5.115.0-0ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.14.0-33.33~24.04.1-generic 6.14.11
Uname: Linux 6.14.0-33-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.28.1-0ubuntu3.8
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Tue Nov  4 20:32:27 2025
InstallationDate: Installed on 2025-04-03 (215 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS "Noble Numbat" - Release amd64 (20250215)
SourcePackage: kio
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

** Affects: kio (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug noble wayland-session

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Title:
  kio_http_cache_cleaner automatically connects to a network resource

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