It is impossible to navigate to a different Windows drive from the notebook file selection UI

[anntzer]

... unless I am mistaken.
(notebook 4.1.0 from Anaconda, Windows (of course))

[takluyver]

We deliberately disallow navigation upwards from the current directory, as a simple way to limit what can be accessed through the notebook web server. On Unix, if you really want it to show everything, you can run it from root, but on Windows there is no single root. I guess you could make a custom content manager that makes a virtual root directory containing the drive letters.

[anntzer]

I guess this is for security reasons? Any chance you can provide a switch that would remove this restriction, which IMO doesn't make much sense for strictly local use?

[takluyver]

It is, sort of. Even running it locally, someone who can log in to your computer (e.g. over SSH), they can connect to your notebook server if you don't use a password. This is not that uncommon - the machine I'm using here at work has SSH running and several other user accounts. It's not a really good security measure, because someone who can connect to the notebook server can start a kernel and do anything, but it raises the barrier a bit.

As I described, there is a way to serve all folders, we just didn't consider Windows drive letters when designing that. I don't think any of the core developers use Windows as their main system, so that's not a big surprise. I gave what I think would be the easiest way to implement it within the current framework. It's probably not going to be high priority for the core devs, though.

[anntzer]

As you mentioned yourself, once one can access to your notebook server all bets are off (os.system("rm -rf /") anyone?), while not being able to move to all folders is a real annoyance.

I'm not familiar at all with the security model but wouldn't it be much more secure, for local usage only (one notebook process, one server) for jupyter notebook to default to generating a random password to only allow a single notebook process to connect to the server?

[takluyver]

Right, it's a security speedbump, not a wall. Again, there is a way to effectively disable it, it's just insufficient on Windows because of the way it handles the filesystem.

Yes, the random password would be more secure, and it's something I want to work on, but somehow I haven't got round to it... He typed at 7.20pm, trying to clear the steady flow of emails before going home ;-)

[havnar]

A pity this will not be fixed, mounting your desktop to another disk (hdd instead of ssd) means, no saving to desktop for this guy...

[wgilpin]

Seems crazy to require a Windows user to put everything in the C: drive. Security is weakened by this, not strnegthened

[takluyver]

We don't require you put everything there. You can start more than one notebook server in different folders.

[wgilpin]

You're right. This is an Anaconda config issue, not Jupyter

…

On Thu, 15 Mar 2018 at 15:32 Thomas Kluyver ***@***.***> wrote: We don't require you put everything there. You can start more than one notebook server in different folders. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1334 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AHwExPRP7wl4aTsDeckc_n0dJ9qbibACks5teomcgaJpZM4IE1nl> .

[sndnshr]

Can we change the current directory in Anaconda prompt to anything other than C: drive? Seems like it's not possible. Doesn't this sort of compels the user to put every script in C: ?

[jasongrout]

@sndnshr, that sounds like a great question for the anaconda folks on their support channel.

[bigcatz]

It really common nowadays on windows desktops to make c: an SSD and the bulk storage an HDD. The limitation is annoying. I'm passing on learning to use Jupyter for now. I have higher priorities and limited time to figure out cumbersome workarounds. Please change this.