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authorLennart Poettering <lennart@poettering.net>2004-09-23 23:26:15 +0000
committerLennart Poettering <lennart@poettering.net>2004-09-23 23:26:15 +0000
commit405fac5ea7070fa7b50a77952fa8042f87f588a8 (patch)
tree9b052bb0478f507ecbbbfd91907cc1b544a0fe18 /doc
parented36241085da8f797adf7d70ab702fee10e8cba0 (diff)
bump version number and update documentation
git-svn-id: file:///home/lennart/svn/public/pulseaudio/trunk@239 fefdeb5f-60dc-0310-8127-8f9354f1896f
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
-rw-r--r--doc/FAQ.html.in59
-rw-r--r--doc/README.html.in11
-rw-r--r--doc/modules.html.in10
3 files changed, 70 insertions, 10 deletions
diff --git a/doc/FAQ.html.in b/doc/FAQ.html.in
index ac9bc466..f1bf2414 100644
--- a/doc/FAQ.html.in
+++ b/doc/FAQ.html.in
@@ -62,14 +62,34 @@
embed Polypaudio in the aRts process.</p></li>
<li><p><b>I often hear noises when playing back with Polypaudio, what can I do?</b></p>
- <p>There are to possible solutions: either make the polypaudio
- binary SUID root (<tt>chmod u+s /usr/bin/polypaudio</tt>) and run it
- with argument <tt>--high-priority=1</tt> or increase the fragment sizes of the audio
+ <p>There are to possible solutions: run polypaudio with argument
+<tt>--high-priority=1</tt> and make yourself member of the group
+<tt>realtime</tt>, or increase the fragment sizes of the audio
drivers. The former will allow Polypaudio to activate
<tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> high priority scheduling (root rights are dropped
- immediately after this) Keep in mind that is a potential security hole!</p></li>
-
- <li><p><b>I only want to run polypaudio when it is needed, how do I do this?</b></p>
+ immediately after this) Keep in mind that this is a potential security hole!</p></li>
+
+ <li><p><b>The <tt>polypaudio</tt> executable is installed SUID root by default. Why this? Isn't this a potential security hole?</b></p>
+
+ <p>Polypaudio activates <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling if the user
+passes <tt>--high-priority=1</tt>. This will only succeed when
+executed as root, therefore the binary is marked SUID root by
+default. Yes, this is a potential security hole. However, polypaudio
+tries its best to minimize the security threat: immediately after
+startup polypaudio drops all capabilities except
+<tt>CAP_SYS_NICE</tt> (At least on systems that support it, like Linux; see <tt>man 7
+capabilities</tt> for more information). If the calling user is not a
+member of the group <tt>realtime</tt> (which is required to have a GID
+< 1000), root rights are dropped immediately. This means, you can
+install polypaudio SUID root, but only a subset of your users (the
+members of the group <tt>realtime</tt>) may make use of realtime
+scheduling. Keep in mind that these users might load their own binary
+modules into the polypaudio daemon which may freeze the machine. The
+daemon has a minimal protection against CPU hogging (the daemon is
+killed after hogging more than 70% CPU for 5 seconds), but this may
+be circumvented easily by evildoers.</p></li>
+
+ <li><p><b>I want to run polypaudio only when it is needed, how do I do this?</b></p>
<p>Set <tt>autospawn = yes</tt> in <tt>client.conf</tt>. That
configuration file may be found either in <tt>/etc/polypaudio/</tt> or
@@ -81,12 +101,35 @@ in <tt>~/.polypaudio/</tt>.</p></li>
<p>Add <tt>-v</tt> for terse usage instructions.</p>
- <li><p><b>What environment does polypaudio care about?</b></p>
+<li><p><b>How do I use polypaudio over the network?</b></p>
+
+<p>Just set <tt>$POLYP_SERVER</tt> to the host name of the polypaudio server.</p>
+
+<li><p><b>Is polypaudio capable of providing synchronized audio playback over the network for movie players like <tt>mplayer</tt>?</b></p>
+
+<p>Yes! Unless your network is congested in some way (i.e. transfer latencies vary strongly) it works perfectly. Drop me an email for experimental patches for MPlayer.</p>
+
+ <li><p><b>What environment variables does polypaudio care about?</b></p>
<p>The client honors: <tt>POLYP_SINK</tt> (default sink to connect to), <tt>POLYP_SOURCE</tt> (default source to connect to), <tt>POLYP_SERVER</tt> (default server to connect to, like <tt>ESPEAKER</tt>), <tt>POLYP_BINARY</tt> (the binary to start when autospawning a daemon), <tt>POLYP_CLIENTCONFIG</tt> (path to the client configuration file).</p>
<p>The daemon honors: <tt>POLYP_SCRIPT</tt> (default CLI script file run after startup), <tt>POLYP_CONFIG</tt> (default daemon configuration file), <tt>POLYP_DLPATH</tt> (colon separated list of paths where to look for modules)</p></li>
-
+
+
+<li><p><b>I saw that SIGUSR2 provokes loading of the module <tt>module-cli-protocol-unix</tt>. But how do I make use of that?</b></p>
+
+<p>A brilliant guy named Lennart Poettering once wrote a nifty tool
+for that purpose: <a
+href="http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/bidilink/">bidilink</a>. To
+connect to a running polypaudio daemon try using the following commands:</p>
+
+<pre>killall -USR2 polypaudio
+bidilink unix-client:/tmp/polypaudio/cli</pre>
+
+<p><i>BTW: Someone should package that great tool for Debian!</i></p>
+
+</li>
+
</ol>
<hr/>
diff --git a/doc/README.html.in b/doc/README.html.in
index 34caa78c..a0b3e641 100644
--- a/doc/README.html.in
+++ b/doc/README.html.in
@@ -44,6 +44,13 @@ Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.</p>
<h2><a name="news">News</a></h2>
+<div class="news-date">Mon Sep 24 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
+href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.1.tar.gz">Version 0.5.1</a> released;
+changes include: improve esound protocol compatibility; fix
+autospawning via <tt>libesd</tt>; make use of POSIX capabilities;
+allow <tt>SCHED_FIFO</tt> scheduling only for users in group
+<tt>realtime</tt>; minor build system fix.</p>
+
<div class="news-date">Mon Sep 20 2004: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-0.5.tar.gz">Version 0.5</a> released;
changes include: extensive API improvements, new module
@@ -222,7 +229,9 @@ compilation and <tt>make install</tt> (as root) for installation of
<p>The current release is <a href="@PACKAGE_URL@polypaudio-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></p>
-<p>Get <tt>polypaudio</tt>'s development sources from the <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/">Subversion</a> <a href="https://seth.intheinter.net:8081/svn/polypaudio/">repository</a>. (<a href="http://0pointer.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/?root=polypaudio">viewcvs</a>)</p>
+<p>Get <tt>polypaudio</tt>'s development sources from the <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/">Subversion</a> <a href="svn://seth.intheinter.net/polypaudio/">repository</a> (<a href="http://0pointer.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/?root=polypaudio">viewcvs</a>): </p>
+
+<pre>svn checkout svn://seth.intheinter.net/polypaudio/trunk polypaudio</pre>
<p>If you want to be notified whenever I release a new version of this software use the subscription feature of <a href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/polypaudio/">Freshmeat</a>.</p>
diff --git a/doc/modules.html.in b/doc/modules.html.in
index 00fe3388..4bf6044b 100644
--- a/doc/modules.html.in
+++ b/doc/modules.html.in
@@ -220,7 +220,7 @@ about the two possible suffixes of this module.</p>
<h3>module-native-protocol-fd</h3>
-<p>This is used internally when auto spawning a new daemon.</p>
+<p>This is used internally when auto spawning a new daemon. Don't use it directly.</p>
<h2>Miscellaneous</h2>
@@ -243,6 +243,14 @@ about the two possible suffixes of this module.</p>
<tr><td><tt>frequency=</tt></td><td>The frequency to generate in Hertz. Defaults to 440.</td></tr>
</table>
+<h3>module-esound-compat-spawnfd</h3>
+
+<p>This is a compatibility module for <tt>libesd</tt> based autospawning of polypaudio. Don't use it directly.</p>
+
+<h3>module-esound-compat-spawnpid</h3>
+
+<p>This is a compatibility module for <tt>libesd</tt> based autospawning of polypaudio. Don't use it directly.</p>
+
<hr/>
<address class="grey">Lennart Poettering &lt;@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@&gt;, September 2004</address>
<div class="grey"><i>$Id$</i></div>