[mythtv-users] Setting up a test environment

Richard peper03 at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 6 17:05:22 UTC 2012


On 12/10/12 00:41, George Nassas wrote:
> On 2012-10-11, at 3:52 PM, Richard <peper03 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I'd like to set up a second Myth environment so that I can try out various things like playing with the code and basic preliminary checks on new versions.
>>
>> How do you handle this?
>
> An unusual but perfectly good way to accomplish the network isolation is to change the ports used by your test system. Normally myth traffic is on ports in the 6000s so make the test system live in the 7000s and they'll never see each other. The port numbers are all stored in the settings table. I assume you're using a chroot on the main box to isolate the executables so that plus a different name for the test system database ought to get you there. Just have one config.xml point to the production mythconverg database and another config.xml for test and you're good to go.

Hi,

Coming back to this as I haven't had much chance until now to play again.

 From what you write, it sounds like that's for creating a 2nd 
environment on the same machine, which is not what I want to do.

My main box is a combined BE/FE.  This box is my 'production' system and 
is only used for Myth.  I try to keep this box as clean as possible 
(i.e. keep the number of installed packages to a minimum and use it only 
for Myth).

My PC is in another room and is used for all other stuff.  I'll quite 
often use this as a 2nd frontend to watch stuff my wife isn't interested 
in (whilst she watches stuff I'm not interested in on the TV :) ).

I want to set up a Myth development environment on my PC that would be 
self-contained.  The development backend, frontend, DB and receiver HW 
would all be on the PC.

Ideally, the development software would be behind a firewall to ensure 
that it can never accidentally contact the main box or be contacted by 
it.  It would appear, however, that there is no suitable 
application-level firewall for Linux (I would love to be corrected if 
I'm wrong).

Using a separate config directory for the development stuff *should* 
work, but it doesn't feel reliable.  It seems to be too easy to get 
something wrong and be connected to the wrong machine without noticing. 
  I tried to change the server ports the other day, as you suggested (as 
that seemed the next best thing to a firewall), and then suddenly 
realised that I was connected to my main box instead.

The only thing I can think of at the moment would be one or more 
iptables rules to block access to the main box.  These could be 
activated when I want to work on the development code, and deactivated 
otherwise.  Not completely ideal though.

Surely I'm not the only one in this situation?  Using separate config 
directories should be ok, but as I said, I've had my config file changed 
under my feet before now but I can't say why.  There'll be an 
explanation for it but it doesn't leave me feeling confident.

Richard.


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