[vlc-devel] [PATCH] rtsp: change default to unpriviledged

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

   Hello,

On Thursday 09 December 2010, Pierre Ynard wrote:
> > On Thursday 09 December 2010, Pierre Ynard wrote:
> > > Apache and FTP servers are coded and packaged for being run as root,
> > > and out of the box. VLC is neither, it's even discouraged and made
> > > impossible.
> > 
> > We have the vlc-wrapper; this is not true.
> 
> vlc-wrapper != out of the box.

It's not like you can setup easily an RTSP server out of the box really.

> But yeah, another option to get a usable
> default is to somehow automagically call vlc-wrapper when there's going
> to be RTSP.

You can call it all the time. It does not matter if it's not used.

> > > However VLC's HTTP access output defaults to ports 8080 and 8443, not
> > > sure why; is it only to avoid conflicts with real HTTP servers?
> > 
> > So VLC is not a real RTSP server? Then why don't we admit it and
> > remove the VoD altogether?
> 
> That's not what I implied. VLC is more of a "real" RTSP server than it
> is of a classic HTTP server.

Exactly. That's why RTSP defaults to the real port, and HTTP not.

> Okay, then what do you think would have made sense?

If you ask me, the only proper solution is to run a system service that has 
the privileges to bind the needed port(s). Then it can "share" those ports 
based on URLs, a bit like the Apache homedir module does.

Obviously, this would be far more involved than public_html directories. An 
IPC would be required between the system service daemon and the applications 
publishing RTSP streams, for instance a D-Bus "agent" interface.

I believe Windows Vista has something like that built-in for HTTP, but that's 
only hearsay.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net/