[mythtv] [mythtv-commits] Ticket #4593: /.mythtv/ should *not* get created (blank homedir)

[Michael T. Dean]

On 02/05/2008 05:41 PM, Nigel Pearson wrote:
> Ignoring will not be a quick patch though -
> it has to support Unix, Unix running as root
> (where HOME might actually be '/'), and Windows.

As far as running on *nix as root where HOME is "/", I think we should 
prevent this, too.  According to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, the 
recommended default location for the home directory for the root user is 
/root ( 
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#ROOTHOMEDIRECTORYFORTHEROOTUSER 
).  Though it also allows the location to be determined by developer or 
local preference, it specifically forbids applications from creating or 
requiring special files or subdirectories in the root directory ( 
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#THEROOTFILESYSTEM ).

TTBOMK, no distro sets the root user's HOME directory to '/' (and if 
they do, they should be fixed).  The only issues we've had where the 
"HOME" directory was interpreted as '/' were due to 
QDir::homeDirPath()'s returning '/' when no HOME was set and 
improperly-configured distros/user installs running, i.e. mythbackend 
(or--shudder--X/mythfrontend), directly from an init script without even 
setting a HOME variable.

So, I'd recommend refusing to use "/" as the immediate parent of the 
conf dir on all *nix systems.

Mike