Recordings Directory Permissions

dedc

Hello
I would like to change the folder that tvheadend uses to store recordings to a different local drive but I am getting a permissions error. Apologies ahead of time for what is essentially a newbe linux, question. I think I am setting the permissions to the drive correctly but the hts user still does not have access to it. Maybe because of restrictions applied to the account because it is a system account and not a standard user account? This I what I have done:

Mount data drive, create sub-folder for tvheadend recordings.
Set permissions to sub-folder to 777.
Set owner and owner group to folder to hts

when I try to browse to that directory I get a permissions denied error. I also get a permissions denied error when I update tvheadend. Not surprising considering I can’t access that directory through terminal.

Tvheadend Version 4.3-2366
OS: Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS

Jonas Lang

dedc have you tried setting the recordings path in the UI in the Recordings section. It’s pretty straightforward once you have the correct path defined. No need to mess around with ownership and permissions.

dedc

Thanks for the quick response. Yes, I tried that. At least, I think I did. Maybe you mean that tvheadend will create the directory for me with the correct permissions so I should not create the directory ahead of time? I tried that and got the same permissions error. I should have probably already posted a screenshot of where I am updating tvheadend in case there is something I am missing…

And this is the error in tvheadend

Jonas Lang

dedc where is your local drive located. Your path looks incorrect.

dedc

Sorry if this wasn't clear. It is a second/additional drive (SSD) connected to the computer that is running tvheadend. It is not a network drive but it is also not the OS drive.

DaveH

Do you have permission to access the directory itself? Please show the results of:

$ ls -la /mnt
$ ls -la /mnt/data

hts needs read and write permission all the way down from the top.
PS as Jonas might have meant, it's unusual to have a permanent mount point under /mnt - it's usually used for temporary mounts. Perhaps a new directory under /var/lib/tvheadend might make sense as a mount point?

Jonas Lang

I was about to go the /var/lib route once I established where the drive was located. There’s a hell of a lot of discussion on this particular subject on the forum which usually ends up hitting a brick wall. A quick search will show examples of it.

dedc

Thanks. I did set permissions on just the sub folder, not the entire directory tree, so that will probably fix the issue. I can’t make those changes now but will do it this evening. Appreciate your advice about the mount point. It is probably apparent that I am new to linux. I will change that to something more standard.

dedc

i mounted the drive to var/lib/tvheadend and everything appears to be working. Thanks again for the help.

Flole

Please don't mess with the internal file/directory structure of Tvheadend, otherwise you risk having issues later on

DaveH

Flole Please don't mess with the internal file/directory structure of Tvheadend, otherwise you risk having issues later on

I'm not quite sure what this means, nor what better alternatives are available?

Flole

/var/lib/tvheadend contains Tvheadends internal files. If you mess with the structure or mount stuff into it, there might be issues.

The alternative is to adjust the permissions accordingly and mount the drive where it belongs.

DaveH

Flole mount the drive where it belongs.

And where is that?

Flole

/media or /mnt