[pulseaudio-discuss] No dynamic ACLs on /dev/snd/* when opening a new virtual terminal via openvt

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Wed, 2014-09-17 at 11:27 -0400, Alex K wrote:
> Hi team, 
> 
> 
> I have a puzzling question crossing PulseAudio and systemd-logind
> behavior. In short, if you open a new virtual terminal with sudo
> openvt -vlu, there will be no sound in it, because dynamic ACL
> on /dev/snd/* doesn't include your account. 
> 
> 
> How to reproduce: 
> 1. Switch to first VT and login (Ctrl+Alt+F1)
> 2. Open a new virtual terminal: sudo openvt -vlu (it is likely going
> to be tty8)
> 3. Switch to tty8: Ctrl+Alt+F8
> 4. Try to play a sound: play /path/to/wav/file.wav
> 
> 
> Play command will be stuck until you switch to another VT: ACLs get
> updated, sound gets played in the background. 
> 
> 
> What would be a good way to fix it?

PulseAudio doesn't have any control over the ACLs, the systemd mailing
list would be the right place to ask.

FWIW, I tried the steps you gave on Fedora 20, and I observed the same
behaviour. I'm not sure this is a bug, however. The ACLs are set based
on who has an active session on the seat. When you logged in in tty1, a
new session was created, and it was marked as active. When you created a
new tty with openvt, no new session was created. When you switched to
the new tty, the session on tty1 was marked as inactive, and since there
was no session bound to tty8, from logind's point of view no session was
active, hence no access to the sound card for anyone.

The question is that should a new session be created when creating a new
tty with openvt. I don't know the answer to that. (Another alternative
would be to tie the session on tty1 also to tty8, but I don't think that
makes sense.)

-- 
Tanu