[pulseaudio-discuss] /var/lib/pulse permissions issue

[Jim Duda]

I'm trying to upgrade to FC11, which comes with pulseaudio 0.15 release.

My environment is a little odd.  I have a bunch of headless machines 
which share a diskless root file system mounted over NFS.  Each machine 
has it's own /var directory, however, each var directory is created with 
a link, with another link to a common /var/lib directory (long story). 
Since these machines are headless, I need to run in system mode.

It appears that pulseaudio doesn't like a link to /var/lib

lroom# pulseaudio --system -v
I: core-util.c: Successfully gained nice level -11.
W: main.c: Running in system mode, but --disallow-exit not set!
W: main.c: Running in system mode, but --disallow-module-loading not set!
N: main.c: Running in system mode, forcibly disabling SHM mode!
N: main.c: Running in system mode, forcibly disabling exit idle time!
I: main.c: Found user 'pulse' (UID 515) and group 'pulse' (GID 515).
I: main.c: Successfully dropped root privileges.
I: main.c: This is PulseAudio 0.9.15
I: main.c: Page size is 4096 bytes
I: main.c: Machine ID is lroom.
I: main.c: Using runtime directory /var/run/pulse.
E: core-util.c: Failed to create secure directory: Permission denied

lroom# l /var/
total 72
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Jan 22  2009 X11R6
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Feb 26  2009 account
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Mar  4 08:13 cache
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Apr  8 11:00 cvs
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar  4 08:13 db
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar  4 08:13 empty
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Mar  4 08:13 games
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   15 Aug 30 14:45 lib -> ../root/var/lib
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Mar  4 08:13 local
drwxrwxr-x  5 root lock 4096 Mar  4 08:13 lock
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Aug 30 09:09 log
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   10 Aug 29 16:13 mail -> spool/mail
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Mar  4 08:13 nis
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Mar  4 08:13 opt
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Mar  4 08:13 preserve
drwx------  2 pulse pulse 4096 Aug 30 16:23 pulse
drwxrwxrwx 28 root root 4096 Aug 30 16:02 run
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Aug 29 18:47 spool
drwxrwxrwt  2 root root 4096 Aug 30 10:51 tmp
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar  4 08:13 yp

If I remove the lib -> ../root/var/lib and replace with a real 
directory, pulseaudio starts fine.

I'm trying to get around this by using environment variables.
I look at the source code, and determined this *should* work.

lroom# env | grep pulse
PULSE_STATE_PATH=/var/pulse/lroom
PULSE_HOME=/var/pulse/lroom
PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH=/var/pulse/lroom

Running with these ENV variables, I get the same:

lroom# env | grep pulse
PULSE_STATE_PATH=/var/pulse/lroom
PULSE_HOME=/var/pulse/lroom
PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH=/var/pulse/lroom
lroom# pulseaudio --system -v
I: core-util.c: Successfully gained nice level -11.
W: main.c: Running in system mode, but --disallow-exit not set!
W: main.c: Running in system mode, but --disallow-module-loading not set!
N: main.c: Running in system mode, forcibly disabling SHM mode!
N: main.c: Running in system mode, forcibly disabling exit idle time!
I: main.c: Found user 'pulse' (UID 515) and group 'pulse' (GID 515).
I: main.c: Successfully dropped root privileges.
I: main.c: This is PulseAudio 0.9.15
I: main.c: Page size is 4096 bytes
I: main.c: Machine ID is lroom.
I: main.c: Using runtime directory /var/run/pulse.
E: core-util.c: Failed to create secure directory: Permission denied

Notice that the runtime directory didn't follow PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH.

Do the ENV variables no longer work?

Any ideas appreciated.

Thanks,

jim