[mythtv-users] What are these connections?

Stephen Worthington stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz
Wed Nov 8 13:44:03 UTC 2017


On Wed, 8 Nov 2017 22:19:23 +1100, you wrote:

>On 08/11/17 18:27, Paul Harrison wrote:
>> On 8 November 2017 at 03:54, Eyal Lebedinsky <eyal at eyal.emu.id.au> wrote:
>>> Replying to myself:
>>>
>>> On 06/11/17 23:36, Eyal Lebedinsky wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 06/11/17 23:16, Stuart Auchterlonie wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On 05/11/17 00:06, Eyal Lebedinsky wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> While tracing another issue I noticed requests for
>>>>>>       http://alcor.mythtv.org/themes/repository/0.28.1/themes.zip
>>>>>> which returns a '404 Not Found'.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is this from the mythtv backend that is running here? I did not expect
>>>>>> any connections
>>>>>> to be made from the server - what is this?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> TIA
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It's requesting the available themes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks, I thought something like this too, but I never requested for this
>>>> to be done.
>>>> I expected themes to arrive as mythtv updates using the usual distro
>>>> system,
>>>> so why repeatedly request it?
>>>>
>>>> I do not recall an option for this in the setup either - how do I disable
>>>> this access?
>>>> I searched the MythTV wiki and made a few 'net searches but did not find
>>>> an answer.
>>>
>>>
>>> I decided to look into it myself.
>>>
>>> $ sudo strings -a /usr/bin/mythbackend|less
>>> /tmp/remotethemes
>>> %1/%2/themes.zip
>>> ThemeRepositoryURL
>>> fixes/0.28
>>> fixes/
>>> trunk
>>> HouseKeeper: Error creating %1 directory for remote themes info cache.
>>> http://themes.mythtv.org/themes/repository
>>> HouseKeeper: Failed to download %1 remote themes info package.
>>> HouseKeeper: Error extracting %1 remote themes info package.
>>>
>>> So this is a HouseKeeper task. Did a bit more digging and located:
>>>
>>> $ sudo strings -a /usr/bin/mythbackend|grep PeriodicHouseKeeperTask
>>> _ZN23PeriodicHouseKeeperTaskC2ERK7QStringiffi16HouseKeeperScope18HouseKeeperStartup
>>> _ZN23PeriodicHouseKeeperTask9SetWindowEff
>>> _ZN23PeriodicHouseKeeperTask10SetLastRunE9QDateTimeb
>>> _ZN23PeriodicHouseKeeperTask13UpdateLastRunE9QDateTimeb
>>> _ZN23PeriodicHouseKeeperTask10DoCheckRunE9QDateTime
>>> _ZN23PeriodicHouseKeeperTask10PastWindowE9QDateTime
>>> _ZTV23PeriodicHouseKeeperTask
>>>
>>> Not knowing of how to control this task I turned to the database.
>>>
>>> $ sudo mysql -p
>>> MariaDB [(none)]> use mythconverg
>>> Reading table information for completion of table and column names
>>> You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A
>>>
>>> Database changed
>>> MariaDB [mythconverg]> select * from housekeeping;
>>> +--------------------------+--------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
>>> | tag                      | hostname           | lastrun             |
>>> lastsuccess         |
>>> +--------------------------+--------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
>>> | JobQueueCleanup          | NULL               | 2006-10-31 00:12:19 |
>>> 2006-10-31 00:12:19 |
>>> | JobQueueRecover          | e7                 | 2009-08-08 20:01:16 |
>>> 2009-08-08 20:01:16 |
>>> | InUseProgramsCleanup     | NULL               | 2006-10-31 00:12:19 |
>>> 2006-10-31 00:12:19 |
>>> | BackupDB                 | NULL               | 2017-09-18 02:49:09 |
>>> 2017-09-18 02:49:09 |
>>> | JobQueueRecover          | e7a.eyal.emu.id.au | 2009-08-15 23:30:38 |
>>> 2009-08-15 23:30:38 |
>>> | JobQueueRecover          | e7.eyal.emu.id.au  | 2017-11-07 23:40:12 |
>>> 2017-11-07 23:40:12 |
>>> | DBCleanup                | NULL               | 2017-11-07 21:46:12 |
>>> 2017-11-07 21:46:12 |
>>> | MythFillDB               | NULL               | 2017-10-06 06:49:58 |
>>> 2017-10-06 06:49:58 |
>>> | LogClean                 | NULL               | 2017-11-07 23:52:12 |
>>> 2017-11-07 23:52:12 |
>>> | ThemeUpdateNotifications | NULL               | 2017-11-07 23:04:12 |
>>> 2017-11-07 23:04:12 |
>>> +--------------------------+--------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
>>> 10 rows in set (0.00 sec)
>>>
>>> MariaDB [mythconverg]> update housekeeping set lastrun='2027-11-07
>>> 23:04:12',lastsuccess='2027-11-07 23:04:12' where tag =
>>> 'ThemeUpdateNotifications';
>>> Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
>>> Rows matched: 1  Changed: 1  Warnings: 0
>>>
>>> MariaDB [mythconverg]> quit
>>> Bye
>>>
>>> I will now see if this stops the probes.
>>>
>>> Still, I would like to know
>>> 1 - is what I did safe?
>>> 2 - is there a proper way to stop these probes?
>>>
>>> TIA
>>>
>>>
>>>>> There are some oddities in the way it's hooked up which means
>>>>> it starts at the version it is and then downgrades through the
>>>>> earlier releases, which leads to some 404's as it requests
>>>>> themes.zip for versions which don't have one.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What I see is just that one failed access and no further "downgrades".
>>>>
>>>>> It's something i'd like to change, as the 404's in the server
>>>>> logs annoy me. Sadly it's on the long term todo list, as part
>>>>> of reworking the themes part of our infrastructure.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>> Stuart
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Eyal Lebedinsky (eyal at eyal.emu.id.au)
>> 
>> 
>> I can only advise you NOT to do something like this, it's completely
>> unnecessary.
>
>I understand Paul,
>
>But it did not help anyway, I now checked the db and mythtv did another probe just then.
>See the last line, UTC 11:04 is 22:04 here, about 10 minutes ago:
>
>MariaDB [mythconverg]> select * from housekeeping;
>+--------------------------+--------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
>| tag                      | hostname           | lastrun             | lastsuccess         |
>+--------------------------+--------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
>| JobQueueCleanup          | NULL               | 2006-10-31 00:12:19 | 2006-10-31 00:12:19 |
>| JobQueueRecover          | e7                 | 2009-08-08 20:01:16 | 2009-08-08 20:01:16 |
>| InUseProgramsCleanup     | NULL               | 2006-10-31 00:12:19 | 2006-10-31 00:12:19 |
>| BackupDB                 | NULL               | 2017-09-18 02:49:09 | 2017-09-18 02:49:09 |
>| JobQueueRecover          | e7a.eyal.emu.id.au | 2009-08-15 23:30:38 | 2009-08-15 23:30:38 |
>| JobQueueRecover          | e7.eyal.emu.id.au  | 2017-11-07 23:40:12 | 2017-11-07 23:40:12 |
>| DBCleanup                | NULL               | 2017-11-08 09:46:12 | 2017-11-08 09:46:12 |
>| MythFillDB               | NULL               | 2017-10-06 06:49:58 | 2017-10-06 06:49:58 |
>| LogClean                 | NULL               | 2017-11-07 23:52:12 | 2017-11-07 23:52:12 |
>| ThemeUpdateNotifications | NULL               | 2017-11-08 11:04:12 | 2017-11-08 11:04:12 |
>+--------------------------+--------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
>
>I would rather that the themes come with the package and not updated separately. I also am
>uncomfortable with any calls home.
>
>Anyone knows why it is done this way?
>
>TIA

If you are really set on preventing it from connecting to the themes
server, then the simple way to prevent it is to put a rule in your
router's firewall to block that connection.  But it is really not
something to worry about - all it is getting is the list of themes and
their descriptions.  It does not send any information to the server,
it just gets the current theme data.  You have to actually select a
theme in the Theme Chooser menu before it will download a theme.

I expect that the main reason for doing it this way is so that you can
see the visual styles of all the themes when you are selecting one. If
the themes were in packages, you would need to hunt down all the theme
packages and probably install them before you could find out how they
look.  That would not work well and most people would never bother to
change from the default theme, and would be missing out on using a
theme that suits them better.

>> The house keeper task is there for a reason, most themes are NOT
>> packaged by any distro so can only be updated by pulling them from our
>> server. If a code change requires updates to a theme using an old
>> version can and often cause bigger complication than this minor one.
>> 
>> Paul H.


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