[Slackbuilds-users] TiMidity++ as daemon, failure to connect to pulseaudio

[Kyle Guinn]

On 7/23/18, Rubén Llorente <porting at use.startmail.com> wrote:
> Hello.
>
> The instructions provided in TiMidity++'s Slackbuild page for running
> it as a daemon/alsa sequencer don't work.
> https://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/audio/TiMidity++/
>
> rc.timidity will have the daemon started, but it will fail to generate
> any sound output.
>
> I suspect that, when I start a desktop session, a pulseaudio instance
> under the privileges of my user gets started. TiMidity++, running as a
> root daemon, is not authorized to inject sound into Pulseaudio because
> it is a different user than my desktop one.
>
> Could somebody else reproduce this problem and confirm it?
>
> A possible solution would be to run pulseaudio as a system wide daemon,
> but that is too problematic.
>
> Another possible solution would be to apply something like this:
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Examples#Allowing_multiple_users_to_use_PulseAudio_at_the_same_time
>
> My suggestion, if this issue is reproducible and shown to be caused for
> the above reasons, is to update the slackbuild in the following ways:
>
> 1- Recommend the creation of a timidity user for running as a daemon.
> Running the daemon as root is a bit dangerous.
> 2- Modify rc.timidity for starting the daemon under the privileges of
> said user.
> 3- Recommend the solution posted in the Arch wiki. I have yet to try it,
> and is also a bit dangerous because it allows system-wide access to the
> daemon run by the user to everybody in the system, unless you take
> additional messures (such as changing the permissions of the socket?)
>
> Trivial solution is to start timidity with the desktop session, running
> with the privileges of the user sitting in front of the machine.

I'm listed as maintainer, but I don't think I've ever had a need to
use it in daemon mode, and all my systems are mostly PulseAudio-free.
So I'm not in a great position to test this.  If you find a good
solution, would you like to take over maintenance and submit an
update?  It's been a while since I've needed to use this program and
I'm sure the script could use some love.

-Kyle