[MPlayer-users] SqueezeCenter Installation [Solved]

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 12:27:25PM -0500, C. Andrews Lavarre wrote:
> > Looking in /etc/services works without Google...
> 
> Thanks. How is one to know to look there?

Years of experience. You find it when you hear a configuration file
crying in the middle of the night because nobody ever looks at it and it
does not really configure anything either ;-)

> > Of course there is the question why on earth someone would disallow
> > outgoing connections (except for large "public" networks) no matter
> > to which port.
> 
> Um, that is philosophical...

It's just applying the theory that configuring a firewall to protect
your PC from yourself is somewhat absurd, even if not quite as much as
I'd like.

> > You're "supposed" 
> 
> A list or source for all these "supposed"s, or a pointer thereto, is 
> what is needed. Haven't found supposed_FAQ and Google returns nil in 
> this department...  :-)

This "supposed" should be somewhere in the "common sense in computing
rules". When applied to unix-like systems is: Don't run something as
root unless you know or have tried that it will not work otherwise.
There's not really any other reason not to compile MPlayer as root, to
my knowledge.

> >> *** svn is a protocol that requires opening port 3690. As this is well 
> >> beyond the first 1024 common ports it requires some kind of awareness, 
> >> not some dude just wanting to play music...
> > 
> > I've only ever seen that applied to incoming connections, if your
> > firewall was acting like that by default I think that was a very stupid
> > idea by whoever configured it so, but it will be useful to know that we
> > have to expect another round of such complaints...
> 
> Hmmm. OpenSuse and www.simonzone.com and www.grc.com disagree. The first 
> two wake up locked down tight, the last applauds this.

The www.grc.com is about incoming connections, i.e. when some random PC
from the internet wants to start talking to your PC. And even there
quite a few people consider that "stealth" thing snake-oil.

> All three follow 
> the philosophy (opinion) of opening only the minimum essential ports, 
> period.

When applied to _outgoing_ connections, i.e. connections that your PC
starts, the only philosophy that covers it it IMHO is the "our users
are too stupid to know what they do, but get root permissions anyway"-philosophy.
Though since I can't remember such issues with OpenSuSE maybe SVN didn't
work for you for some other reason...

Greetings,
Reimar Döffinger