Difference between revisions of "Frontend Auto Login"

Revision as of 10:59, 17 June 2007

Part of a proper frontend system is having it automatically login as the mythtv user and loading mythfrontend. There are a variety of methods to do this. KDM allows for auto-login, but doesn't handle mythfrontend crashes well. The best method is to use inittab to login the user straight into mythfrontend.

Setup

First you will need to make sure you have mingetty installed. Next, make sure you have a dedicated user to run the mythfrontend with a home directory.

inittab

Add the following line to your '/etc/inittab' file,

c7:12345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --autologin=mythtv tty7

This is what will login the mythtv user.

Option 1

Now we will setup the mythtv user,

.bash_profile

In that home directory, create/edit a .bash_profile file like this,

if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ] && [ $(tty) == /dev/tty7 ]; then
while [ 1 == 1 ]
     do
          startx
          sleep 10
     done
fi

this will start X only if running on virtual terminal 7, so if you telnet or ssh into the box it will not react strange. It will also restart X if the frontend crashes.

.xinitrc

There are two options for .xinitrc, one will load a window manager, the other will not.

No Window Manager

For no windowmanager, create/edit the user's .xinitrc and add,

xset -dpms s off
xsetroot -solid black
mythfrontend -l /home/mythtv/mythfrontend.log
#mythtv-setup
#xterm

This will turn off dpms, turn the X default background color black and log to /home/mythtv/mythfrontend.log, this can be changed. Also included is an easy way to access mythtv-setup or xterm, just uncomment the appropriate line and comment out the mythfrontend line.

You should note that running mythfrontend without a window manager is not a supported configuration. You may run into focus problems when trying to press buttons, enter text and generally use the system.

fvwm

To use fvwm, edit your .xinitrc like,

xset -dpms s off
xsetroot -solid black
x11vnc -many -q -bg -rfbauth .vnc/passwd
fvwm2 &
mythfrontend -l /home/mythtv/mythfrontend.log 2>&1
#mythtv-setup
#xterm

Next edit your .fvwm2rc,

# Submitted by Scott Elliott <selliott at insight.rr.com>
Style "*" RandomPlacement, DumbPlacement
Style myth* NoTitle, NoHandles, Sticky, WindowListSkip, SloppyFocus, GrabFocus, BorderWidth 0
Style xmame* NoTitle, NoHandles, Sticky, WindowListSkip, SloppyFocus, GrabFocus, BorderWidth 0, StaysOnTop
Style mplayer* NoTitle, NoHandles, Sticky, WindowListSkip, SloppyFocus, GrabFocus, BorderWidth 0

ratpoison

Another popular window manager is ratpoison. This version of the .xinitrc file also allows you to use vnc to connect to your frontend (as the fvwm example above) and rotates the log files at each restart of the frontend.

xset -dpms s off
xsetroot -solid black
ratpoison &
x11vnc -many -q -bg -rfbauth .vnc/passwd
mythfrontend > /home/mythtv/mythfrontend.log 2>&1
for i in 5 4 3 2 1 ; do
  if [ -f mythfrontend.log.$i ]; then
    mv -f mythfrontend.log.$i  mythfrontend.log.$(($i + 1))
  fi
done
mv mythfrontend.log  mythfrontend.log.1

And the associated .ratpoisonrc file. Note that the mythtvstart.jpg file is just something knocked up with the GIMP.

# This is a sample .ratpoisonrc file
#
# Set the prefix key to that of screen's default
escape C-a

# put something informative on the screen while we load stuff
exec xloadimage -onroot -quiet -center /home/mythtv/.mythtv/mythtvstart.jpg

# Gets rid of that ugly crosshairs default cursor and set the background to black
exec xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr

# Use the name of the program rather than the title in the window list
defwinname name

### fire up an xterm with ctrl-A x
bind x exec xterm -j -fn '*-courier-*-r-*-14-*'

# Since running a 720x576 definition the ratpoison screens are too big for the
# display so we reduce the size of them with defpadding to make them fit
#defpadding 25 25 25 25

keystate_numlock = enable

Option 2

If the above instructions don't give you results you like, there is another option to autologin. You can use inittab to login as the mythtv user and launch X all at once, without having to create a .bash_profile script.

Find the following line in your /etc/inittab file:|

6:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6

And comment it out by adding the "#" symbol in front of it:

#6:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6

Then add this line directly under the line you just commented out:

6:2345:respawn:/usr/bin/openvt -fwc 2 -- /bin/su - mythtv -c /usr/bin/startx >& /dev/null

Note: you should test the command to verify that the the mythtv user is authorized to start the X server. If not, modify your /etc/X11/Xwrapper.conf file to include:

allowed_users=anybody

This command starts X as the mythtv user, and will restart X automatically if MythTV crashes. This option has the advantage that if your distribution has a graphical boot sequence like Ubuntu, Red Hat, Mandriva, etc, then you won't see any text before Myth starts. It looks a little more professional. This also means that you don't have to create a .bash_profile script. Edit your .xinitrc file according to the directions above and you are done.

Some may prefer this method of logging in and starting X to the method above because X prefers to use tty 7 and the method above may cause problems.

Note on inittab option 2 and runlevels

If you want to be able to easily change between auto-login and normal xdm login you can restrict the auto-login to eg. runlevel 3, so the auto-start line is inittab looks like this:

6:3:respawn:/usr/bin/openvt -fwc 2 -- /bin/su - mythtv -c /usr/bin/startx >& /dev/null

The default runlevel specification in inittab can then be set to 3 for auto-login or 5 for X-login.

id:3:initdefault:             # auto-login to MythTv

If you have booted in auto-login mode and want to change to X-login mode you can just change run level with the init command:

/sbin/init 5

or back to mythtv mode with:

/sbin/init 3

Note on Ubuntu Edgy (6.10)

As of Ubuntu Edgy, inittab is no longer an option for an automatic login setup. However, you can use Gnome to automatically login and run mythfrontend. Note that this option requires Gnome and X.

First, edit your /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom file:

[daemon]
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=mythtv

Next, create and edit .gnomerc in the user's home folder:

touch /home/mythtv/.gnomerc
chmod 755 .gnomerc

Now edit this file and add the following line:

sleep 10 && mythfrontend > /tmp/mythfrontend.log 2>&1 &

Option 3

Configure a Login Manager to login automatically as a default user. Then configure your desktop (KDE or GNOME) to autostart a program like mythfrontend. To deal with mythfrontend crashes, I would suggest that you run a wrapper around mythfrontend like

while true; do mythfrontend; sleep 5s; done

KDM Auto Login

For the default user, create a link in ~/.kde/Autostart that points either to the script listed above (or some other script that starts the front end) or merely to mythfrontend itself. The system will now log in automatically, and immediately start the frontend.

Frontend Auto Login with Fedora Core 5 and GNOME / GDM

To set GDM to auto-login your mythtv user, edit your GDM configuration:

 vi /etc/gdm/custom.conf

Add the following lines to the [daemon] section:

[daemon]
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=mythtv

Then, set the $HOME/.xsession file for your mythtv user to start mythwelcome:

 vi ~mythtv/.xsession

An example, which will start the Metacity window manager, an xterm (which you can start with F12 from mythwelcome) and finally, mythwelcome itself.

Note: If mythwelcome dies for some reason, GDM will restart it.

#!/bin/bash
metacity &
xterm &
mythwelcome

Make sure to make it executeable:

 chmod 755 ~mythtv/.xsession

If you'd like to be able to login as a different user before GDM logs in your mythtv user, replace the AutomaticLogin lines in your GDM configuration with TimedLogin lines.

This example will wait 10 seconds before logging in the mythtv user.

[daemon]
TimedLoginEnable=true
TimedLogin=mythtv
TimedLoginDelay=10

Frontend Auto Login with Kubuntu / KDM

To set KDM to auto-login your mythtv user, edit your KDM configuration:

 sudo vi /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc

Go to (almost) the bottom of the file and edit the next lines:

[X-:0-Core]
AutoLoginDelay=0
AutoLoginEnable=true
AutoLoginUser=mythtv

Frontend Auto Login for Fedora and KDE

Fedora Core 6 uses a script to let you choose which login manager to use. If no default is given it uses xdm. You can set the default by creating a file called /etc/sysconfig/desktop and adding DISPLAYMANAGER="KDE" or DISPLAYMANAGER="GNOME". Once this file is there then you can set the auto login from within KDE like so:

1. Click on the K menu.
2. In the K menu, click on Control Center.
3. When the control center screen appers there is a list of options to pick. Select the System option.
4. The System menu will expand and give a list of sub menus - click on Login Manager.
5. When the login manager is displayed there are tabs that you can select Appearance/Font/Background/Sessions/Users/Convenience. Click on the Convenience tab.
6. Go to the Automatic Login box, you will see there is 2 check boxes and a drop down menu. Click Enable Auto-login. Select user from the drop down menu.
7. Click the Apply button down on the bottom right.
8. Close window. The automatic login process will take effect when you restart your computer.