Bug#777041: xbmc: unable to disable extensive debug logging

[Jonathan McDowell]

On Mon, Mar 02, 2015 at 07:27:21PM +0100, Bálint Réczey wrote:
> 2015-02-04 11:00 GMT+01:00 Jonathan McDowell <noodles at earth.li>:
> > I'm hoping I'm just missing something here, but the Debian XBMC packages
> > do extensive debug logging out of the box, including logging every
> > directory scanned for updates, even when there is no change, and logging
> > several lines each time a key is pressed on the remote e.g:
> >
> > 09:52:25 T:140192028579744   DEBUG: Keyboard: scancode: 0x71, sym: 0x0114, unicode: 0x0000, modifier: 0x0
> > 09:52:25 T:140192028579744   DEBUG: CAnnouncementManager - Announcement: OnScreensaverDeactivated from xbmc
> > 09:52:25 T:140192028579744   DEBUG: GOT ANNOUNCEMENT, type: 4, from xbmc, message OnScreensaverDeactivated
> > 09:52:25 T:140192028579744   DEBUG: OnKey: left (0xf082) pressed, screen saver/dpms woken up
> > 09:52:26 T:140192028579744   DEBUG: ------ Window Deinit () ------
> >
> > I have set:
> >
> >     <debug>
> >         <screenshotpath default="true"></screenshotpath>
> >         <showloginfo default="true">false</showloginfo>
> >     </debug>
> >
> > in ~xbmc/.xbmc/userdata/guisettings.xml and tried:
> >
> >         <loglevel hide="false">-1</loglevel>
> >
> > in ~xbmc/.xbmc/userdata/advancedsettings.xml as well, but I still see
> > this debug output. Given that my XBMC box is on all the time and this
> > logging serves little purpose I'd like to be able to tone it down to
> > avoid the debug output (and I don't expect it to do this out of the bug
> > even when the GUI is saying there's no debug enabled).
> 
> The extensive logging is enabled during the build intentionally to
> help users in debugging issues without recompiling the package.
> IMO there is little harm done since if you don't have problems you
> don't have to look at the logs.
> If you are really worried about the logs accumulating you can even set
> up a cron job to remove it periodically.
> 
> Please check's Kodi's wiki for hints on changing logging, but if you
> can't find a better solution there I probably can't help either:
> http://kodi.wiki/view/Log_file/Advanced

Here are my problems with this approach:

 * There is no indication in the GUI that debug is enabled. The option
   is greyed out. If debug was enabled by default but the GUI showed it
   as enabled (and it could be disabled there) that would be much more
   acceptable.

 * A responsible package should be dealing with its log files in a
   better fashion. Policy 10.8 says they should be in /var/log (probably
   /var/log/xbmc/ for XBMC) and be rotated occasionally, ideally with
   logrotate.

 * The logging of each and every remote keypress is a security concern
   as it means that password entry is recorded.

 * It is not unreasonable to want to limit unnecessary logging output,
   especially that which "can pretty much only be deciphered by a
   developer or long time XBMC/Kodi power user"[0]

Looking at my XBMC which was started less than 2 days ago and breaking
down the log entry types I see:

      9 WARNING:
     78 ERROR:
    320 INFO:
    390 NOTICE:
   7366 DEBUG:

This debug output is considerable compared to the normal output. I
understand the desire to have the debugging enabled by default to ease
support, but the GUI configuration should be showing this is the case
and it should be possible to turn it off.

J.

[0] http://kodi.wiki/view/Log_file/Advanced section 5.2, DEBUG.

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