[mythtv-users] Permissions on Video Library storage group directories

[Kevon]

Stephen,
With a better understanding of Unix permission, this will become a 
simple task. First thing, 777 directory permission is never a good idea 
and IMO should not be used on any directory where you plan on storing 
files for any period of time.

If you want to be able to modify the files created by myth, add yourself 
to the myth group and change the umask of the myth user to 002. This is 
done by creating a .profile (if one doesn't exit) in the $HOME directory 
of the myth user with "umask 002" (no quotes) in the file. This will set 
the myth user to create files with 664 and directories with 775 
permissions by default. You can google umask for more details on how it 
works. Also note that deleting files on Unix/Linux is controlled by the 
directory, not the file itself. ie, anyone can delete files from a 
directory with 777 permission, regardless of the files permission (even 
if it was 400).

My personal setup does not give myth write access to any of the video 
storage. Only the recording storage is writable by myth. The last thing 
I want is a user deleting videos from the video group from the myth gui 
(or a file browser from the myth desktop). I transcode files with the 
myth user to a temp directory, them move the files to the video storage 
with another user ID with write access. This two step process gives me 
some comfort that the possibility of accidentally deleting a file is 
very limited.