[mythtv-users] Select Dropdown for Mythweb

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Thu Nov 14 18:46:47 UTC 2013


On 11/14/2013 01:23 PM, Karl Newman wrote:
>
> Yep, I'm aware of that, I was just hoping that was more backend 
> functionality and that the user-facing portion can run on Apache, etc. 
> Unless there's a simple way to set up proxying in Apache to redirect 
> to this server...

Ideally, what will happen is all of the functionality previously 
available in MythWeb will become available directly from mythbackend.  
This means that new users will automatically get a working web-based 
interface that allows scheduling, managing recordings, and more, without 
having to become system administrators with experience in web server 
setup/configuration.

However, since MythTV opens up /far/ more capabilities via the backend 
web interface than is appropriate to expose to the Internet at large 
(i.e. all of the Service API goodness) not to mention the fact that our 
server (including the server process and the web application code) isn't 
tested against the cruel environment that is today's Internet, I would 
like someone to come up with a nice proxy application that can be run on 
Apache or whatever.  This will allow us to take advantage of Apache's 
existing (and well-tested) user authentication capabilities and all the 
work that's been done to ensure it is reasonably safe to expose Apache's 
ports to the Internet, as well as allow users to access MythTV's web 
interface using a "standard" port (i.e. 80 or 443), potentially where 
they already run other web applications.  Then, users who want to expose 
a MythTV web interface to the Internet can do so with far fewer concerns 
than if they were to expose all of the backend's functionality to the 
Internet.

Originally, I had envisioned the application as also providing a means 
of theming the HTML application by replacing the built-in application's 
CSS, but Stuart has mentioned he plans to provide a means to theme the 
built-in web application.  Therefore, this shouldn't be necessary.

So, all that needs done is for someone to make a little proxy 
application that a) only passes "appropriate" requests to the backend 
(possibly even allowing per-role (group of users) authorizations, 
ideally via some user-configurable mechanism that allows users to define 
how much functionality is available through the Internet-facing web 
application) and b) handles different content types effectively (i.e. 
doesn't block the ability to stream video/music/...).  Obviously, this 
can start small with a "simple" proxy application and niceties (such as 
per-role authorization and user-configurability/configuration pages) can 
be added later.

Perhaps a developer with some experience in creating nice little web 
applications would like to jump in and do some work on it...  :)

Mike


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