Adventures with Plex, Mediatomb, Ubuntu Server & Honeycomb
So a lazy friend of mind decided to rebuild his media server and didn't want to do it alone. Foolishly, I agreed to help. I've been down this road before and could have predicted the outcome.
The plan was he wanted to install Ubuntu Server to be a streaming media platform for his family and also to his new Asus eeePad Transformer Honeycomb Tablet. All good and well. A good enough reason to blow an evening, I thought. I had been planning to upgrade an old Fedora 12 box, so I told him I would do the same install with him and we could share the learning experience together. I always figured I could reinstall Fedora or CentOS again a few days later, if I didn't want to stick with the Ubuntu Server. Considering that it would be running in headless, GUI-less mode, I figured the Ubuntu box wouldn't get on my nerves too much.
Naturally, R chickened out at the end and I ended up doing the install on my lonesome. Thankfully, I had anticipated this so by the time I got the call to cancel, my box was already rebuilt and back under the table in headless mode, purring away.
Here follows some things I learned along the way.
1) I backed up my old /etc folder from the server I was about to wipe
2) I unplugged my data drives before doing the installation. The installer keeps wanting to RAID those drives and I just want them left alone. I took no chances and unplugged the power before running through the install.
3) I only selected openssh during the install process, so the install took about 7 minutes and applying updates another 3 minutes. After 10 minutes the box rebooted and it was up. At this point I downed it again, plugged in the drives and made sure they came up during boot.
4) I did apt-get install aptitude mc lynx samba-client samba-server mediatomb
5) I plugged back the relevant bits of smb.conf and fstab into their respective locations and everything was hunky dory on the samba sharing front.
6) created directory structure:
/mnt/local/drive1
/mnt/local/drive2
/mnt/local/drive3
/mnt/remote/share1
/mnt/remote/share2
The plan was he wanted to install Ubuntu Server to be a streaming media platform for his family and also to his new Asus eeePad Transformer Honeycomb Tablet. All good and well. A good enough reason to blow an evening, I thought. I had been planning to upgrade an old Fedora 12 box, so I told him I would do the same install with him and we could share the learning experience together. I always figured I could reinstall Fedora or CentOS again a few days later, if I didn't want to stick with the Ubuntu Server. Considering that it would be running in headless, GUI-less mode, I figured the Ubuntu box wouldn't get on my nerves too much.
Naturally, R chickened out at the end and I ended up doing the install on my lonesome. Thankfully, I had anticipated this so by the time I got the call to cancel, my box was already rebuilt and back under the table in headless mode, purring away.
Here follows some things I learned along the way.
1) I backed up my old /etc folder from the server I was about to wipe
2) I unplugged my data drives before doing the installation. The installer keeps wanting to RAID those drives and I just want them left alone. I took no chances and unplugged the power before running through the install.
3) I only selected openssh during the install process, so the install took about 7 minutes and applying updates another 3 minutes. After 10 minutes the box rebooted and it was up. At this point I downed it again, plugged in the drives and made sure they came up during boot.
4) I did apt-get install aptitude mc lynx samba-client samba-server mediatomb
5) I plugged back the relevant bits of smb.conf and fstab into their respective locations and everything was hunky dory on the samba sharing front.
6) created directory structure:
/mnt/local/drive1
/mnt/local/drive2
/mnt/local/drive3
/mnt/remote/share1
/mnt/remote/share2
/mnt/remote/share3
/mnt/remote/share4
and mounted remote shares over smb, I could have used nfs, but they are shared on the second Fedora server via SMB for Windows & Mac, so no need to use nfs as well. I did this so that Plex on the Ubuntu Server can serve files stored on the Fedora Server.
7) I installed the Lucid Repo for Plex and install plexmediaserver
8) I edited the mediatomb conf to enable the gui
9) added Plex user & myself to mediatomb group and gave that relevant +x and +r rights to the mounted drives
10) after starting both plex & mediaserver, both their web interface were up!
11) oh year, forgot I had to add back the old samba user that the other machines used to see the shares!
12) Lastly, I had to make the remote shares automount using the fstab.
13) I failed to mention Webmin. Particularly useful for step 9. I had to reset the Webmin root password with a perl script. Link below.
All my XBMC frontends on Windows, OSX & Linux could see the shares unchanged on the frontend which was a huge bonus.
Finally, I have tested streaming various types of content over Wifi to my tablet and its working beautifully.
UPNPlay in combination with whatever Media Player you choose works like a charm. I tested Plex on the iPad and it works too. After this blog post, I'll be buying the Plex Android App and streaming / transcoding HD Movies to my eeePad !
Anybody have any questions about the setup, drop me a line via the comments and I'll do my best to help.
Some pages I used during this process:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MountWindowsSharesPermanently
http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/26727-how-to-plex-media-server-on-ubuntu/
http://www.plexapp.com/linux/linux-pms-download.php
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/webmin-installation-and-configuration-in-ubuntu-linux.html
UPDATE:
Responding to question in comments.
I installed Plex for sharing with my wife's iPad and iPhone. I typically use a combination of cifsmount + rockplayer on my HTC Desire and Asus Transformer to access this content. I also use Plex to access HD content (via transcoding) on the Transformer. The DLNA client (Mediatomb) is mainly used for things like the PS3 and my Samsung TV for browsing and accessing Music, although most of the videos play fine through DLNA (transcoding) as well.
and mounted remote shares over smb, I could have used nfs, but they are shared on the second Fedora server via SMB for Windows & Mac, so no need to use nfs as well. I did this so that Plex on the Ubuntu Server can serve files stored on the Fedora Server.
7) I installed the Lucid Repo for Plex and install plexmediaserver
8) I edited the mediatomb conf to enable the gui
9) added Plex user & myself to mediatomb group and gave that relevant +x and +r rights to the mounted drives
10) after starting both plex & mediaserver, both their web interface were up!
11) oh year, forgot I had to add back the old samba user that the other machines used to see the shares!
12) Lastly, I had to make the remote shares automount using the fstab.
13) I failed to mention Webmin. Particularly useful for step 9. I had to reset the Webmin root password with a perl script. Link below.
All my XBMC frontends on Windows, OSX & Linux could see the shares unchanged on the frontend which was a huge bonus.
Finally, I have tested streaming various types of content over Wifi to my tablet and its working beautifully.
UPNPlay in combination with whatever Media Player you choose works like a charm. I tested Plex on the iPad and it works too. After this blog post, I'll be buying the Plex Android App and streaming / transcoding HD Movies to my eeePad !
Anybody have any questions about the setup, drop me a line via the comments and I'll do my best to help.
Some pages I used during this process:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MountWindowsSharesPermanently
http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/26727-how-to-plex-media-server-on-ubuntu/
http://www.plexapp.com/linux/linux-pms-download.php
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/webmin-installation-and-configuration-in-ubuntu-linux.html
UPDATE:
Responding to question in comments.
I installed Plex for sharing with my wife's iPad and iPhone. I typically use a combination of cifsmount + rockplayer on my HTC Desire and Asus Transformer to access this content. I also use Plex to access HD content (via transcoding) on the Transformer. The DLNA client (Mediatomb) is mainly used for things like the PS3 and my Samsung TV for browsing and accessing Music, although most of the videos play fine through DLNA (transcoding) as well.
Comments
- iPad
- Galaxy Tab
- Media Centre
I'm curious, why did you install both Plex & mediatomb?