[mythtv-users] Adding new channels

[Michael T. Dean]

On 02/16/2008 11:40 AM, John Veness wrote:
> Michael T. Dean wrote:
>   
>> On 02/13/2008 10:51 AM, Jon wrote:
>>     
>>>> You can ssh to your backend from a machine with a display with X
>>>> forwarding (either the -X or -Y option, I'm never quite sure) and run
>>>> mythtv-setup, with the GUI appearing on the machine running the ssh  
>>>> client.
>> It's -Y on any modern OpenSSH.  If you're using OpenSSH and it doesn't 
>> have -Y, you /need/ to upgrade because the version you're using has many 
>> security issues.
>>
>> -X is slower than -Y and all -X does is silly things (that don't apply 
>> to MythTV apps running on your own network) like preventing the MythTV 
>> application from capturing keystrokes sent to other applications or 
>> grabbing the window contents from other windows (i.e. it prevents Myth 
>> from grabbing the contents of your browser window when you're connected 
>> to your online banking application).  I've seen the MythTV code (and you 
>> can see it, too).  Myth doesn't do anything like that, so running with 
>> -X only slows things down and causes errors, and can potentially cause 
>> applications to crash.
>>
>> Also, with -Y, you can use the clipboard--which is /really/ nice for 
>> typing in passwords or paths or ...
>>
>> So, use -Y.  -X is meant for connecting to an untrusted host (i.e. 
>> you're helping someone else configure his MythTV system across the 
>> Internet and you don't know whether his hosts may have rogue programs 
>> running on them).
> That's a really useful summary, thanks. I see that -X is slower and more 
> secure and not necessary in a controlled environment, but I'm intrigued 
> why you say it might cause errors and cause things to crash. Why would 
> that be?

Because programs are generally written to assume they're running in a 
trusted X session.  Very few devs (for any apps) test and fix issues 
that occur when running in an untrusted X session because it's not worth 
the time.

Myth probably won't crash, but it will have X errors.

Mike