[pulseaudio-discuss] Bug#644888: Bug#644809: pulseaudio: Confusing warning `PulseAudio configured for per-user sessions`

[Maarten Bosmans]

Package: pulseaudio
Version: 1.0-4
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-CC: pulseaudio-discuss at lists.freedesktop.org

2011/10/10 Maarten Bosmans <mkbosmans at gmail.com>:
> 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
>