[pulseaudio-discuss] Bug#644809: pulseaudio: Confusing warning `PulseAudio configured for per-user sessions`

[Maarten Bosmans]

2011/10/9 Paul Menzel <pm.debian at googlemail.com>:
> Package: pulseaudio
> Version: 1.0-4
> Severity: normal
> X-Debbugs-CC: pulseaudio-discuss at lists.freedesktop.org
>
>
> Dear PulseAudio Debian packagers and upstream PA folks,
>
>
> the Debian init script `/etc/init.d/pulseaudio` [1] currently prints a
> warning when PA is configured in non-system mode.
>
>        PULSEAUDIO_SYSTEM_START=0
>        DISALLOW_MODULE_LOADING=1
>        test -f /etc/default/pulseaudio && . /etc/default/pulseaudio
>        if [ "$PULSEAUDIO_SYSTEM_START" != "1" ]; then
>                log_warning_msg "PulseAudio configured for per-user sessions"
>                exit 0
>        fi
>
> In my opinion a warning suggests that something might be wrong and
> therefore I am bringing this issues to your attention.

First of all: I appreciate that Debian (and thus Ubuntu) provides the
init script to make it easier to run pulse in system mode.

The warning is correct when /etc/init.d/pulseaudio start is invoked
manually. Because in that case the user expects pulse to be started
and it isn't.
For normal bootup procedure (on an unchanged system), the warning
should not be shown, because then it is expected that pulse is run
per-user.

> In `/etc/default/pulseaudio` [2] there is the following explanation.
>
>        # Start the PulseAudio sound server in system mode.
>        # (enables the pulseaudio init script - requires that users be in the
>        # pulse-access group)
>        # System mode is not the recommended way to run PulseAudio as it has some
>        # limitations (such as no shared memory access) and could potentially allow
>        # users to disconnect or redirect each others' audio streams. The
>        # recommended way to run PulseAudio is as a per-session daemon. For GNOME/KDE/
>        # Xfce sessions in Ubuntu Lucid/10.04, /etc/xdg/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop
>        # handles this function of automatically starting PulseAudio on login, and for
>        # it to work correctly your user must *not* have "autospawn = no" set in
>        # ~/.pulse/client.conf (or in /etc/pulse/client.conf). By default, autospawn
>        # is enabled. For other sessions, you can simply start PulseAudio with
>        # "pulseaudio --daemonize".
>        # 0 = don't start in system mode, 1 = start in system mode
>        PULSEAUDIO_SYSTEM_START=0
>
>        # Prevent users from dynamically loading modules into the PulseAudio sound
>        # server. Dynamic module loading enhances the flexibility of the PulseAudio
>        # system, but may pose a security risk.
>        # 0 = no, 1 = yes
>        DISALLOW_MODULE_LOADING=1
>
> As far as I remember this explanation is correct and also upstream’s, i.
> e. your, view/recommendation.

Indeed, that is why we (upstream) do not provide the init script: to
underline our recommendation.

> If this is correct I guess the init script should be changed to not log
> a warning or explain the warning in a better way.

I'm not sure whether it is possible to differentiate between manual
and bootup invocation of the init script. But that would be the best
solution, I think.

> Thanks,
>
> Paul

Maarten