Frustration with Comskip under Linux

[RayGannon]

I am having trouble finding complete/working installation instructions for Comskip on the OSS version of SageTV under Linux. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by RayGannon

I am having trouble finding complete/working installation instructions for Comskip on the OSS version of SageTV under Linux. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

It's been several years, but I think the only thing that I did, was install "wine" from the ubuntu package manager, and then I installed the ComSkip plugin from the sagetv plugins.

Wine is window's emulation layer that enables you to run some windows programs under linux. The comskip plugin has the comskip binaries. Once that is all isntalled and working you can use the donator version of comskip (if you have it).

[ranger]

I'm working on testing SageTV in Linux and have gotten as far as installing comskip. I have WINE and the comskip plugin installed, but it seems to be tied up on a permissions issue. I can get comskp to run under root but not under my credentials as noted by the plugin wiki.

As soon as I figure this step out, the Linux install should be good to go.

[Taddeusz]

You must make sure the user that comskip runs under has write permission on your recording folders.

[RayGannon]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

You must make sure the user that comskip runs under has write permission on your recording folders.

I hadn't considered a permissions issue. I created a comskip user as some of the docs I read recommended and that seemed to help things along. Is it preferred to open up the permissions on the recording folder or create a group that comskip is a member of ? For that matter, which user is supposed to own the recording folder ? It's currently owned by root.

Does Comskip log such issues somewhere ? I couldn't find anything in the usual locations.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by RayGannon

I hadn't considered a permissions issue. I created a comskip user as some of the docs I read recommended and that seemed to help things along. Is it preferred to open up the permissions on the recording folder or create a group that comskip is a member of ? For that matter, which user is supposed to own the recording folder ? It's currently owned by root.

Does Comskip log such issues somewhere ? I couldn't find anything in the usual locations.

On my test system I just did a chmod 777 on my /var/media/tv folder. If you're that concerned about security I'm sure a more granular approach would be preferred.

[stuckless]

I think initially you can probably do what taddeusz suggests and just make the recordings dir wide open. Later if you get all working then you can then move to a more secure model. I created a sagetv user and group, and my sagetv server, and comskip both run as sagetv user. This takes a bit of work, since you also have to make sure that your video devices are also accessible by the sagetv user.

For now as well, you can switch to your comskip user, and then run the comskip.exe to see if it actually launches.

# sudo su - sagetv
# cd where_is_comskip (/opt/sagetv/server/comskip ??)
# ./comskip.exe

I could be wrong, but I think all the .exe files in that dir need to be executable.

# chmod ug+x *.exe

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I think initially you can probably do what taddeusz suggests and just make the recordings dir wide open. Later if you get all working then you can then move to a more secure model. I created a sagetv user and group, and my sagetv server, and comskip both run as sagetv user. This takes a bit of work, since you also have to make sure that your video devices are also accessible by the sagetv user.

For now as well, you can switch to your comskip user, and then run the comskip.exe to see if it actually launches.

# sudo su - sagetv
# cd where_is_comskip (/opt/sagetv/server/comskip ??)
# ./comskip.exe

I could be wrong, but I think all the .exe files in that dir need to be executable.

# chmod ug+x *.exe

I recently set this up. It wasn't necessary to do anything special with the comskip files (I'm using the donator version). They just needed to be readable. The issue I immediately dealt with was the permissions on the /var/media/tv folder. There was an exception from the Comskip plugin in sagetv_0.txt that basically said it couldn't write anything. Initially I just made it completely open, now it's locked down and still working.

I know in the startup script, it chmods 777 on music, pictures and video. Do you think tv should be in there to so fewer people see this problem?

[RayGannon]

I changed permissions on the TV folder to 777. I wasn't able to run ComSkip when I was logged in as the comskip user until I edited the permissions and group on the folder the comskip executables are in. But it's working now.


EnterNoEscape,

Does your donator version of ComSkip require wine or is it the newer 'linux native' build ?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by RayGannon

I changed permissions on the TV folder to 777. I wasn't able to run ComSkip when I was logged in as the comskip user until I edited the permissions and group on the folder the comskip executables are in. But it's working now.


EnterNoEscape,

Does your donator version of ComSkip require wine or is it the newer 'linux native' build ?

It still needs wine. Sorry, I left that detail out.

[tmiranda]

Install wine.
Install the CommercialDetector plugin.
Then make sure you configure the plugin. Pay special attention to the setting asking about if you are running as root or as a user.

[ranger]

For me comskip started working after a chmod 777 on /var/media/tv. Thanks for the suggestion, it was easy enough for my test setup. I'll set up a new user to run sagetv and comskip and test that as I'd prefer to not run SageTV as root.