Bugzilla Bug 83644

After an install of MPD, and succesfully creating the database, trying to run
mpd produces the following error:

bkreulen mpd # /etc/init.d/mpd start
 * Starting Music Player Daemon...
can't create directory /dev/null/.mcop (Not a directory)

In /etc/passwd, the home directory for user mpd is /dev/null. Changing this to
/home/mpd (and creating it, of course), and rerunning the init script solves
this problem.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. See "details"
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
It worked

Expected Results:  
Is this question really needed?

Portage 2.0.51-r15 (default-linux/x86/2004.3, gcc-3.3.5,
glibc-2.3.4.20040808-r1, 2.6.9-gentoo-r13 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.9-gentoo-r13 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16
Python:              dev-lang/python-2.3.4-r1 [2.3.4 (#1, Feb  9 2005,
00:22:21)]
distcc 2.16 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632)
[disabled]
dev-lang/python:     2.3.4-r1
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r6
sys-devel/automake:  1.8.5-r3, 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.6.3, 1.4_p6, 1.9.4
sys-devel/binutils:  2.15.92.0.2-r1
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.10-r4
virtual/os-headers:  2.4.21-r1
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config
/usr/kde/3.3/env /usr/kde/3.3/share/config
/usr/kde/3.3/shutdown/usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config
/var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig buildpkg ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mir.zyrianes.net/gentoo/
ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo/ http://linuv.uv.es/mirror/gentoo/"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 X apache2 apm arts avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cdparanoia cdr crypt cups
curl dvd dvdr emboss encode esd f77 fam flac font-server foomaticdb fortran gd
gdbm gif gpm gtk2 imagemagick imlib ipv6 java jpeg kde libg++ libwww mad mikmod
motif mpeg mysql ncurses nlsoggvorbis opengl oss pam pda pdflib perl php pic
png
python qt quicktime readline samba sdl spell ssl svga tcpd tiff truetype
truetype-fonts type1-fonts usb xml2 xmms xv zlib linguas_fr"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CBUILD, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS

Hmm... seeing as mpd isn't a login user, I don't feel that it should have its
home be in /home

I feel that mpd should have a home of /var/lib/mpd or somethign similar to that.

Also, related to this, the default mpd.conf refers to $HOME in some of the
default [disabled] options.  With a home of /dev/null, this won't work.  If it
has a home of /var/lib/mpd or some such thing it will be clearly noted that it
is not a normal login user (it has a shell of /bin/false), and it will allow a
user to simply uncomment those options and have things work.  This makes things
overall mroe consistent.

*** Bug 101662 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Reassigning to self, I'll deal with this.

The homedir has been changed to /var/lib/mpd in media-sound/mpd-svn package,
I'll do the same to media-sound/mpd after few more days of testing.

*** Bug 106710 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

mpd-0.11.5-r2 has been committed to portage. The ebuild changes mpd's homedir
to
/var/lib/mpd, and tweaks mpd.conf to contain correct paths. Let me know if
something goes wrong, either by reopening this bug, or by opening a new one.

I don't know if that is good decision...    
mpd development team is aware of this problem and this info "can't create  
directory /dev/null/.mcop (Not a directory)" will noy show up, also this is no  
problem for application. 
I think that better is to set absolute paths in mpd.conf only. 
Only argument for change of home directory is problem with usage of esound 
with mpd. 
    

What are you talking about? The .mcop file is not created by mpd itself, but by
arts daemon, which creates this in user's homedir.

About absolute paths, I'm not aware that we're using anything else than absolute
paths in mpd.conf.

Ok. 
 
I must say that this is my error(?). 
Actually there was problem with creation of .mcop directory for arts (during 
probing available outputs, when in mpc.conf there isn't any info specified), 
but this is not same situation. 
 
Sorry for previous comment.