[mythtv-users] mythfilldatabase fails on every query

[Michael T. Dean]

On 04/30/2007 10:05 PM, Jeffrey Bush wrote:
> Thanks for your help. I got it fixed. I did chmod 777 on /var and /tmp and
> now CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE works perfectly fine and mythfilldatabase is
> chugging away.
>
> One last question. Is it a security issue to have /var and /tmp be rwx by
> all? This computer is solely a PVR, but is (obviously) on the internet.
>
> Is there any risk?

Completely ignoring the security risk side of things (which is out of 
the scope of my answer :), typically both /var/tmp and /tmp are created 
with permissions set to 1777 (i.e., you might want to run "chmod 1777 
{/var,}/tmp").  However, /var typically has permissions set to 755.

Most likely the mysql database files are stored under /var (in 
/var/mysql, perhaps?), so your changing permissions gave the user 
running mysqld permission to modify the files.  Ideally, though, you 
would change only give permissions on those files/directories under /var 
to those users that require read, write, and/or execute permission.  
(I.e. if anyone can write to--or even just execute--the directory 
containing the mysql database files, they have access to all sorts of 
good information (usernames, passwords).  They can even corrupt/destroy 
the database--maliciously or accidentally.)

If you did a recursive chmod, you have opened things up a bit too 
much...  To fix /tmp, you can simply remove everything under that 
directory (including hidden files) at shutdown.  Fixing /var is a bit 
more challenging.  (I'd recommend finding another system with the same 
distro and using it's /var directory structure as a template to fix yours.)

Mike