[mythtv-users] What are these connections?

[Paul Harrison]

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.

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.