[mythtv-users] Running as root

R. G. Newbury newbury at mandamus.org
Fri Sep 29 17:37:57 UTC 2006


Phill Edwards wrote:
>> Unless someone on this list can provide a workaround, you will find that
>>   you cannot auto login as root... for no discernible reason that I can
>> find, except possibly the obstinate religious fervor of the
>> 'never-run-as-root' crowd.
> 
> Here's one work-around - set the SUID bit on mythfrontend. Then you
> can auto-login as mythtv but still have it running as root. I think
> this is what is generally recommended. There's no need to log on as
> root to run mythtv so the fact that you can't auto-login as root
> doesn't matter.
> 
Thanks. Another thing to try. It sounds like it might be simpler. In 
actuality, I would be setting it also for a wrapper script, which would 
have permission to restart services to clear up lock-files etc. It might 
then be possible to make mythfrontend actually run as a service with 
true root privileges while still allowing user mythtv the authority to 
actually deal with the leftovers of crashes, restart etc. (which is the 
only real problem with running as a user.)

And exactly how does one set the SUID bit on a file? Would this be chmod 
+s mythfrontend or chmod 7777 mythfrontend?

As usual the man page, while perfectly correct is perfectly opaque.

              R. Geoffrey Newbury			


        Helping with the HTTP issue
<a href="http://www.w3.org/Protocols/">HTTP</a>


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list