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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 01/06/13 06:00, Richard Shaw wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:mailman.5.1357473601.26177.mythtv-users@mythtv.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 7:36 PM, Malte Gell <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:malte.gell@gmail.com"><malte.gell@gmail.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" style="color: #000000;">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags"></span><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>using MythTV 0.26, does the backend needs to run as root user or can a
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>normal user start the backend too?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">It doesn't <b class="moz-txt-star"><span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span>have<span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span></b> to but it does make some things easier. As long as
the user it runs as is part of the audio and video groups (or the
equivalent on your distro) for access to some devices and the storage
location doesn't require root privileges, you can run the BE as a
non-root user.
Richard</pre>
</blockquote>
mythbackend doesn't need to run as root. It just needs to have the
permissions to write and read its files, and to access the video and
audio devices. It is generally a system administration "best
practice" to run any service with the least level of privilege that
it needs to do its tasks. In this way, you minimize the potential
for any problem with the service (bug, misconfiguration, exploit) to
do damage to the rest of your system. (If you're really of the
paranoid system administration school, put the service in a Linux
container too.)<br>
<br>
It's fairly easy to create a "mythtv" user (e.g., the "useradd"
command) with the appropriate audio and video groups, and run
mythbackend as that user. Here are the relevant lines from
/etc/init.d/mythbackend on a Gentoo distribution (your distro likely
has somewhat different syntax):<br>
<br>
ebegin "Starting MythTV Backend"<br>
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --user mythtv \<br>
--exec /usr/bin/mythbackend \<br>
--make-pidfile --pidfile /var/run/mythbackend.pid \<br>
--background -- --verbose ${MYTH_VERBOSE} \<br>
--logfile /var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log<br>
rc=$?<br>
eend $rc<br>
<br>
Keith<br>
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