MYTHBACKEND(1)

💖 MYTHBACKEND 💖

okay bestie, welcome to mythbackend, the manual page for MythTV Backend 🎀 (that's the mythbackend(1) page, section 1, user commands, iykyk). sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let's get into it.

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✨ NAME ✨

mythbackend — MythTV Backend, the icon, the moment, the whole server 💅

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🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

mythbackend version: fixes/36 [v36.0+fixes.20260401.1385cbfc60-0ubuntu3]

www.mythtv.org — that's the site, go look at it, it's giving official.

MythBackend is literally THE primary server application for MythTV. it's the main character 👑. what does it do? recording and remote streaming access of media. that's the whole vibe. but here's the tea: only one instance of this application is allowed to run on one host at a time. one. singular. no clones, no twins, not happening. and one of them must be configured to operate as a master, which means it does extra scheduler and housekeeper tasks on top of everything else. so like, one of your backends has main character energy and the others are supporting cast 🫶.

🧁 Misc. Options

• -d, --daemon — fork the application into the background after startup. it just... leaves the chat and keeps working 🙈
• --dvbv3 — use the legacy DVBv3 API. old school, but make it functional.
• --noupnp — disable use of UPnP. no upnp, no problem ✨
• -O, --override-setting — override a single setting, defined by a key=value pair. one setting, one little override, so precise 💅
• --override-settings-file — define a file of key=value pairs to be loaded for setting overrides. it's the group-chat version of -O fr fr.
• -p, --pidfile — write the PID of the application to filename.
• --printexpire — print the upcoming list of recordings to be expired. rip to those recordings 😭
• --printsched — print the upcoming list of scheduled recordings. the calendar, but make it terminal.
• --setloglevel — change the logging level of the existing master backend.
• --setverbose — change the debug mask of the existing master backend.
• -h, --help, --usage — display this help printout, or give detailed information of the selected option. ask and you shall receive, bestie 🧚
• --version — display version information.
• --testsched — do some scheduler testing. little test, little slay, no big deal.
• --user — drop permissions to username after starting. permission drop, we love a humble queen 💜
• --webonly — start in web-server-only mode. web server only, nothing else, minimalism ate 🔥

📝 Logging Options

• --loglevel — set the logging level. all log messages at lower levels will be discarded. in descending order: emerg, alert, crit, err, warning, notice, info, debug, trace. and here's the default bestie: it defaults to info.
• --loglong — use the long log format for the console, i.e. show file, line number, etc. in the console log. the full lore, not the summary.
• --logpath — writes logging messages to a file in the directory logpath with filenames in the format: applicationName.date.pid.log. this is typically used in combination with --daemon, and if used in combination with --pidfile, this can be used with log rotators, using the HUP call to inform MythTV to reload the file. very much the "everything in its place" energy 🎀
• -q, --quiet — don't log to the console (-q). don't log anywhere (-q -q). double -q is the silent treatment, periodt 💀
• --syslog — set the syslog logging facility. set to "none" to disable, defaults to none. so yeah, off by default, no cap.
• --systemd-journal — use systemd-journal instead of syslog. out with the old, in with the journal ✨
• -v, --verbose — specify log filtering. use -v help for level info. when in doubt, just ask for help, bestie 🫶

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⚠️ friendly reminder: only one instance of this app per host at a time, and one must be the master. don't try to run a whole squad of masters, it's not that kind of party 💅

that's the whole page, you ate it, you understood it, we're obsessed 💖🦋🌸

— k bye, this was mythbackend version 36.0+fixes.2026040... from August 2026, and yes we are still on MYTHBACKEND(1). slay 👑🌈⭐