From: Luke Cole <luke@(email surpressed).au>
Subject: Maxwell Standalone Renders on OSX
   Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:41:14 -0500

Hi,

Thanks in advance,



---
Luke Cole
Research & Development

FUEL International
65 King St., Newtown, Sydney NSW, Australia 2042

Luke Cole wrote:
> We are experiencing a problem getting maxwell standalone renders  
> working successfully on osx.   The problem appears to be due to the  
> maxwell standalone renderer needing to open a graphical console  
> window to output logging information rather than writing to stdout.
> 
> Rush is configured to run apps on the osx machines under a dedicated  
> render user account, and if this user is not logged in to the osx  
> window server, the maxwell standalone "command line" client (mxcl)  
> fails with the following error, because the dedicated render user  
> does not have permission to access the window server:
> 
> _RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection to  
> the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL.
> 
> Annoyingly, there appears to be no means of forcing mxcl to run in a  
> silent mode - it will always attempt to open a graphical console  
> window.   On our dedicated osx render nodes, this is not really an  
> issue, as we are able to leave these machines logged in under the  
> dedicated render user, and all is well.
> 
> We would like to be able to render on some of our high-end osx  
> workstations in the evenings however, and as these are usually left  
> logged in under artist user accounts, the jobs end up failing due to  
> the above error.
> 
> I was wondering if anyone might have any suggestions on how we could  
> work around this issue?

	I'd suggest opening a dialog with the Maxwell guys right away.
	GUIs make unattended/distributed rendering almost impossible.

	Best thing I can advise trying is making the executable
	setuid root, eg:

chown 0:0  /path/to/maxwell/executable
chmod 4755 /path/to/maxwell/executable

	..and see how that flies.

-- 
Greg Ercolano, erco@(email surpressed)
Seriss Corporation
Rush Render Queue, http://seriss.com/rush/
Tel: (Tel# suppressed)
Fax: (Tel# suppressed)
Cel: (Tel# suppressed)

Thanks Greg,

We'll give it a try and see how it goes!

On 22/01/2009, at 5:59 PM, Greg Ercolano wrote:

	I'd suggest opening a dialog with the Maxwell guys right away.
	GUIs make unattended/distributed rendering almost impossible.

	Best thing I can advise trying is making the executable
	setuid root, eg:

chown 0:0  /path/to/maxwell/executable
chmod 4755 /path/to/maxwell/executable

	..and see how that flies.

---
Luke Cole
Research & Development

FUEL International
65 King St., Newtown, Sydney NSW, Australia 2042

On Wednesday 21 January 2009 22:59, Greg Ercolano wrote:

>  I'd suggest opening a dialog with the Maxwell guys right away.
>  GUIs make unattended/distributed rendering almost impossible.
>
>  Best thing I can advise trying is making the executable
>  setuid root, eg:
>
> chown 0:0  /path/to/maxwell/executable
> chmod 4755 /path/to/maxwell/executable
>
>  ..and see how that flies.

I contacted NextLimit over year ago about this issue and nothing has changed.  
Maybe if a few more users add some weight behind the issue they may do 
something.

Be careful with making the executable setuid.  Maxwell will write things all 
over the drive given the chance.

On 23/01/2009, at 9:49 AM, Robert Minsk wrote:

I contacted NextLimit over year ago about this issue and nothing has changed.

Maybe if a few more users add some weight behind the issue they may do
something.

Be careful with making the executable setuid. Maxwell will write things all

over the drive given the chance.

---
Luke Cole
Research & Development

FUEL International
65 King St., Newtown, Sydney NSW, Australia 2042