Bug#806592: vdr: Fails to start without video directory

Tobias Grimm

2015-11-29 17:01:30 UTC

Hello Paul!

What would be a better location for the recording directory?
/var/lib/video was especially chosen more than a decade ago to be FHS
conform (/video was used before). Maybe /var/lib/vdr/(video|recordings)
would be better?

On new installations root will be asked to create /var/lib/video. If the
admin doesn't do so, it is expected that he is creating/configuring a
video directory manually. I'm not sure if it would be wise to always
create /var/lib/video. As you noted, it could quickly run full. The common
use case is to have a special drive / LVM / NFS share or whatever for
recordings. This will always require the admin to manually mount/link
/var/lib/video or configure a different recording directory in 00-vdr.conf.

The upgrade situation is kinda difficult. The config files have completely
changed, multiple video directories (video.00/01...) are not supported
anymore by upstream and getting everything to work with systemd AND
SysVinit doesn't make things easier. At least for upgrades the admin is
expected to update some config options manually, which is noted in the NEWS.

I'm open to every suggestion to improve things as long as it doesn't
involve setting any config options from the maintainer scripts.

BR,

Tobias

Post by Paul Menzel
Package: vdr
Version: 2.2.0-5
Severity: important
Dear Debian folks,
`/var/lib/video` does not exist on my system and therefore VDR fails to
start.
```
$ systemctl status vdr
â vdr.service - Video Disk Recorder
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/vdr.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sa 2015-11-28 07:59:50 CET; 22min ago
Process: 1343 ExecStart=/usr/bin/vdr (code=exited, status=2)
Process: 1305 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh /usr/lib/vdr/merge-commands.sh reccmds (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Process: 975 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh /usr/lib/vdr/merge-commands.sh commands (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 1343 (code=exited, status=2)
Nov 28 07:58:05 myhostname systemd[1]: Starting Video Disk Recorder...
Nov 28 07:59:46 myhostname vdr[1343]: [1343] ERROR (tools.c,441): /var/lib/video: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
Nov 28 07:59:50 myhostname systemd[1]: vdr.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=2/INVALIDARGUMENT
Nov 28 07:59:50 myhostname systemd[1]: Failed to start Video Disk Recorder.
Nov 28 07:59:50 myhostname systemd[1]: vdr.service: Unit entered failed state.
Nov 28 07:59:50 myhostname systemd[1]: vdr.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 28 07:59:50 myhostname vdr[1343]: vdr: can't access video directory /var/lib/video
```
Should the start script at least create that directory, so that VDR
continues running. I understand that one could argue, that this is not
desired, as the partition, `/var/lib/video` exists on, could run full.
Thanks,
Paul
PS: Iâll contact the mailing list, why `/var/lib` is used to store
videos. That fundamentally violates the FHS [1] in my opinion.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard
Debian Release: stretch/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 3.19.0-trunk-686-pae (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
ii adduser 3.113+nmu3
ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.58
ii init-system-helpers 1.24
ii libc6 2.19-22
ii libcap2 1:2.24-12
ii libfontconfig1 2.11.0-6.3
ii libfreetype6 2.6.1-0.1
ii libgcc1 1:5.2.1-25
ii libjpeg62-turbo 1:1.4.1-2
ii libstdc++6 5.2.1-25
ii libsystemd0 228-2
ii fonts-freefont-ttf 20120503-4
ii lirc 0.9.0~pre1-1.2
ii ttf-bitstream-vera 1.10-8
pn vdr-plugin-dvbsddevice <none>
* vdr/select_dvb_card: Terrestrial
vdr/create_video_dir: false
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