Re: [Tracker] How can tracker databases be used by multiple users?

[Martyn Russell <martyn lanedo com>]

On 30/06/11 15:51, Stefan v. Wachter wrote:
> Hi Tracker folks,

Hello,

> I would like to deploy tracker on a fileserver. There exist multiple
> user groups with various access rights to different folders and files. I
> would like to create one user "tracker_index", who has access to all
> files. Under this user the tracker-miner processes should run and do all
> the indexing work.
> Then I would like to create another user "tracker_query". Under this
> user, which has a password publicly available for all people using the
> fileserver, it should be possible to run a tracker-search query.
> I tried to replace /home/tracker_query/.cache/tracker by a softlink
> created by
> ln -s /home/tracker_index/.cache/tracker/ ./tracker
> and disabling indexing under /home/tracker_query/.config/tracker .
> Unfortunately it does not work so easily.
>
> Is there a recommended way to deploy tracker on a multi user fileserver?

In theory you could use XDG environment variables instead of links to 
change the location of the databases and configuration used by tracker 
processes both the clients and servers. This is something i've used in 
the past to debug databases sent to me via bug reports.

As for accessing the same DB by multiple users, it should work as if it 
were just another client from the same user (AFAICT). This would require 
you set up the environment well for all users and the Tracker user 
"tracker_query" too.

It sounds like what you want is to use the env var 
TRACKER_SPARQL_BACKEND="direct" for all users != tracker_index too, this 
will only allow queries (no updates) to the DB.

The main problem you will have is the tracker_query user will likely 
have it's own processes and files in place, you need to basically 
disable tracker from starting for all other users other than 
tracker_index and for the rest, you need to set up the environment to 
point to the right places.

This has been asked for before, but it's not something we really 
support, so we can't give an concrete way to do this - really just 
configuration options to attempt it.

Let us know if it works or you have any other questions.

--
Regards,
Martyn

Founder and CEO of Lanedo GmbH.