[mythtv-users] mythfilldatabase fails on every query
Michael T. Dean
mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Tue May 1 03:18:07 UTC 2007
On 04/30/2007 10:05 PM, Jeffrey Bush wrote:
> Thanks for your help. I got it fixed. I did chmod 777 on /var and /tmp and
> now CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE works perfectly fine and mythfilldatabase is
> chugging away.
>
> One last question. Is it a security issue to have /var and /tmp be rwx by
> all? This computer is solely a PVR, but is (obviously) on the internet.
>
> Is there any risk?
Completely ignoring the security risk side of things (which is out of
the scope of my answer :), typically both /var/tmp and /tmp are created
with permissions set to 1777 (i.e., you might want to run "chmod 1777
{/var,}/tmp"). However, /var typically has permissions set to 755.
Most likely the mysql database files are stored under /var (in
/var/mysql, perhaps?), so your changing permissions gave the user
running mysqld permission to modify the files. Ideally, though, you
would change only give permissions on those files/directories under /var
to those users that require read, write, and/or execute permission.
(I.e. if anyone can write to--or even just execute--the directory
containing the mysql database files, they have access to all sorts of
good information (usernames, passwords). They can even corrupt/destroy
the database--maliciously or accidentally.)
If you did a recursive chmod, you have opened things up a bit too
much... To fix /tmp, you can simply remove everything under that
directory (including hidden files) at shutdown. Fixing /var is a bit
more challenging. (I'd recommend finding another system with the same
distro and using it's /var directory structure as a template to fix yours.)
Mike
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