[mythtv-users] V31, switching to xmltv on fedora

[Richard Shaw]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 11:55 PM DaveD <mythtv at guiplot.com> wrote:

> Fedora packages don't create a mythtv user in the usual sense: there is
> no /home/mythtv directory.  mythbackend runs as user mythtv.  I assume
> it spawns mythfilldatabase as the same user. Where is the xmltv data
> going to go?  Where does the channel setup data go?  I'm confused.  All
> the pages I've read so far keep referring to mythbuntu and creating a
> mythtv user.  Do I need to do that so I can run xmltv config as that
> user?  Other stuff suggests running xmltv setup (and mythfilldatabase?)
> as any user, then creating symlinks, again to /home/mythtv/.mythtv.  Do
> I have to have /home/mythtv/.mythtv for this to work? Would I be advised
> to create an actual profile with password and literally log in as mythv
> to run this stuff?
>

You can also ask questions on the RPM Fusion mailing list for Fedora distro
specific question but I'm on both. :)

System services often do have home directories, they're just not in /home.
For the past decade or more the Fedora package has defaulted the mythtv
user home to /var/lib/mythtv, and in general this is the way it should be
for most services, however, because mythbackend looks for some stuff there
in $HOME even though I have MYTHCONFDIR set to /etc/mythtv in the SystemD
service file:

# systemctl cat mythbackend | grep MYTHCONFDIR
Environment=MYTHCONFDIR=/etc/mythtv

Because of that I recently changed it to /etc/mythtv to be more intuitive.
HOWEVER, once the user is created, package updates will NOT change this for
obvious reasons.

To check try this as root (or sudo):

# cat /etc/passwd | grep mythtv
mythtv:x:900:900:mythbackend user:/var/lib/mythtv:/sbin/nologin

Since my install is 10+ years old it's obviously on /var/lib/mythtv so I
have a mix:

# ll /etc/mythtv
total 50528
drwxr-xr-x.  3 mythtv mythtv     4096 Apr 13  2015 3rdParty
drwxr-xr-x  10 mythtv mythtv     4096 Dec  7 14:00 cache
drwxr-xr-x.  2 mythtv mythtv    57344 Mar 28 20:29 channels
-rw-r--r--   1 mythtv mythtv      108 Oct 14  2018 Comcast.xmltv
-rw-r--r--.  1 mythtv mythtv      627 Nov 16  2013 config.xml
drwxr-xr-x   2 mythtv mythtv     4096 Feb 19  2016 HardwareProfile
-rw-r--r--   1 mythtv mythtv     5502 Nov  5  2018 mythtv.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 mythtv mythtv      108 Oct 14  2018 OTA.xmltv
-rw-r--r--   1 mythtv mythtv 51634176 Apr 10 20:40 SchedulesDirect.DB
drwxr-xr-x.  2 mythtv mythtv     4096 Nov 16  2013 themes
drwxr-xr-x   4 mythtv mythtv     4096 Dec 26 07:09 tmp

# ll /var/lib/mythtv/.mythtv
total 44
drwxrwxr-x 2 mythtv mythtv  4096 Dec  9  2018 3rdParty
drwxrwxr-x 2 mythtv mythtv  4096 Dec  9  2018 channels
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mythtv mythtv   629 Mar 11 17:30 config.xml
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mythtv mythtv 24482 Nov  4  2018 lossless_cut.cfg
drwxrwxr-x 2 mythtv mythtv  4096 Dec  9  2018 themes
drwxrwxr-x 3 mythtv mythtv  4096 Dec  9  2018 tmp

However, you can see my xmltv files in /etc/mythtv... I probably need to
migrate my $HOME over and see if I can get rid of the need for
/var/lib/mythtv/.mythtv. It's not ideal to be storing non-config files in
/etc, but oh well.

Thanks,
Richard
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