Preparing for Installation

Create MythTV User

A user, mythtv, is more or less required on a MythTV backend. It will be used to run the backend process, perform routine administrative tasks, and its home directory will store a few configuration files that do not reside in the database. It is not necessary for the mythtv user to have a login shell in most cases.

The mythtv user is optional on a frontend, where it would generally be used to run the frontend on a system which is dedicated to MythTV.

Most packages will create a mythtv user during installation. Some will create it correctly. Creating it manually will ensure the correct and preferred configuration. An associated group mythtv will often be helpful. Capture devices attached by interfaces such as PCI will often be owned and only accessible by group video, so mythtv on a backend should be a member of group video in most cases. The following command will create a mythtv user, group, home directory, and add the mythtv user to group video on most platforms.

sudo useradd --system --create-home mythtv --groups video

When the mythtv user is used to run mythfrontend, groups audio and cdrom will likely be required as well.