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Bug 557154 - Allow totem to run without write-access to home directory
Allow totem to run without write-access to home directory
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: GStreamer
Classification: Platform
Component: gstreamer (core)
0.10.21
Other All
: Normal normal
: 0.10.22
Assigned To: GStreamer Maintainers
GStreamer Maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2008-10-20 21:25 UTC by mark burdett
Modified: 2008-10-21 05:32 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: 2.21/2.22



Description mark burdett 2008-10-20 21:25:26 UTC
Please describe the problem:
I would like to be able to run totem and totem-video-thumbnailer without write access to the user's home directory (or without even having a home directory), for security reasons.  The apps are launched via automated processes and running as an un-privileged (or, under-privileged) user.

I noticed that after upgrading from gstreamer 0.10.20 to gstreamer 0.10.21, totem-video-thumbnailer did not function without write access to its home directory, presumably to write to ~/.gnome2 or ~/.gstreamer-0.10 directory.  After creating a home directory and giving the user write access, totem-video-thumbnailer functioned as expected.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Attempt to use totem-video-thumbnailer to create a thumbnail as a user with a nonexistent home directory.

Actual results:
No thumbnail is created.

Expected results:
If you create a writable home directory, totem-video-thumbnailer now creates a thumbnail.

Does this happen every time?
Yes.

Other information:
I am not sure if this bug is in gstreamer or totem.  Also I only tested on the released versions of gnome and gstreamer specified.
Comment 1 Sebastian Dröge (slomo) 2008-10-21 05:32:39 UTC
This is fixed in CVS by this commit:

2008-10-08  Sebastian Dröge  <sebastian.droege@collabora.co.uk>

        * gst/gstregistrybinary.c: (gst_registry_binary_write_cache):
        If we can't get a cache file don't try to save something to it.
        Dereferencing NULL pointers usually isn't a good idea.