Re: Soundserver digest, Vol 1 #43 - 3 msgs

X.org is helping to sponsor the MAS project, with the intention of putting X11-integrated
network-transparent audio/multimedia services into X distributions (but not into
the X protocol itself).  I believe it will be able to take advantage of X11
authentication mechanisms (magic cookies, etc.), but am not 100% sure, so have
cc'ed the people who would know best.  As I mentioned on this very mailing list
yesterday, you can find out more about MAS at http://www.mediaapplicationserver.net/

-- 
	-Alan Coopersmith-      [email protected]
	 Sun Microsystems, Inc.   -   Sun Software Group
	 Quality, Integration, & Customer Success (QICS)
	 Platform Globalization Engin. - X11 Engineering

> Subject:
> [Soundserver] Audio, network transparency and security problems
> From:
> Ian Chiew <[email protected]>
> Date:
> Tue, 19 Nov 2002 00:48:36 +1100
> To:
> [email protected]
> 
> 
> Hi.
> 
> Here's something I've run into on occasion:
> 
>   There are X terminals -- mostly stripped-down, diskless Linux boxen --
>   on every desktop.  They boot off the network into a minimal
>   filesystem and run XFree86.  They're all display-managed by an
>   appserver, to which users log in and run a mix of GNOME and KDE
>   applications.  The terminals all have properly-configured audio
>   hardware.  Users' audio needs are mostly confined to system beeps and
>   MP3 playback.
> 
> Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a painless solution to getting
> network-transparent audio services working in an environment like this.
> 
> The existing major desktop audio projects -- NAS, eSound and aRts --
> all seem to require that their server daemons run on the X terminals
> with access control turned off for remote audio to work.  This probably
> isn't acceptable security on many networks.
> 
> So, I'm wondering if there is:
> 
> -  An audio service which can transparently use the X server's
>    authorization keys to authenticate its own clients, or a way of
>    bludgeoning one of the above into doing so?
> 
> -  Any effort underway to integrate an audio service into, say,
>    the XFree86 server?
> 
> -  Any effort underway to extend the X11 protocol to provide audio
>    services?
> 
> -- Ian.
> 
>