esd question

[raf <raf2 zip com au>]

hi,

i have a question about esound the answer to which i couldn't find
in the online documentation. i've written a jukebox server that
accepts requests from the network to play music using mpg321 and
the sound comes out the soundcard, through an amplifier, and out
to some real speakers where it sounds nice.

the problem is how to create a specific user for this server to
run as. if i run it as myself, the jukebox only works when i am
currently logged into X (presumably because i own /dev/dsp when
i'm logged into X). if i create a user called "dj" and run the
jukebox server as that user, it never works (presumably because
dj never owns /dev/dsp). if i run it as root, it works all the
time but i'd really rather not run it as root.

so what can i do? i didn't understand the section on "Authentication
Model" in the online documentation. it just says "Your .esd_auth file".
that doesn't sound like much of a model :) my .esd_auth just contains
16 nul bytes. i thought i might be able to copy that to the "dj"
user's home directory (/tmp) but it did nothing.

would the -trust option do me any good? i haven't tried it yet
because it didn't really look relevant.

do you know where the ownership of /dev/dsp happens? maybe i
can suppress it and leave /dev/dsp permanently owned by "dj"?

so is there anything i can do to either:

  1) allow dj and myself to produce sound, or
  2) just allow dj to produce sound whether i am logged in or not.

i'm quite happy to be prevented from producing sounds while logged
in if it means that my jukebox works.

btw, i'm using redhat 7.3 but not gnome or enlightenment
(at least, not that i'm aware of).

thanks in advance,
raf