Network Sharing/Streaming SMB, UPNP, NFS


renegadechic

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After a small conversation in the Firmware Suggestions thread on this subject I wanted to start a more searchable thread on this subject as I had some trouble finding much with great focus.


To quote my post in that thread:

Networking for new users like myself is a bit of a struggle. Personally I even struggle on Windows systems, let alone Linux so some kind of guide and documentation on this would be helpful.

In my case, I was looking to connect my DLink Share Centre DNS-320 to my Pandora to hopefully stream videos, music and maybe even roms to play over a network with a fixed central storage space rather than over removable media. I did spend some time searching forums for help but I was not entirely sure what I was looking for. After some pointing in the right direction from sebt3 I got going with Gigolo to create an SMB share which works quite well (it does come up as a hidden file though on ./gvfs which though is accessible on something like PanPlayer with a config change, this isn't possible in every instance i.e. comix). aTc also pointed me in the direction of DJMount and though the command line instructions had me lost for a while (its amazing how instinctive it is to overcomplicate things) that works as an option.


In both cases though I was able to do some caching with mplayer that lasted a minute or so, the connection was too slow to stream video fluidly over wifi. It also takes a while to populate and explore all the folders on the server. I tested this with a Edimax EW-7811UN dongle hoping that it might circumvent the internal wifi issues but it didn't make enough of a difference. I did manage to use the SMB share to play Castle of Illusion on Picodrive. It took a little while to load the rom, but when it was loaded it ran fine. I expect the larger the rom and the more reads it needed to make, the less effective it would be i.e. with playstation ISOs.


This has all become a bit of a tangent but I guess ultimately, it was something I would assume numerous people would want to do with their Pandora but not something easy to find information on. It might also be the case that we just have not come across an ideal solution yet too. Either way an idiots guide to networking would be really awesome, at least to resolve connections on the Pandora end since we cannot expect everyone's home systems to be the same.


As another slight aside, it was mentioned that NFS would be better than SMB for what I am trying to do, but I don't actually know where to begin with that.


The tl;dr is that, as an average windows user and a new linux user, I found networking on the Pandora quite difficult to set up and I expect that other users are in a similar situation.


It would be great to be able to share any individual process and experiences in one place so others can find the best solution for their needs.


In my case I would like to try and find the best way to stream video and music and access roms (and possible run ISOs) from a central NAS rather than using removable media.


All these tests were carried out using an Edimax EW-7811UN wifi dongle, so better results may be achieved over a wired connection, but that isn't really what I was trying to achieve.


XBMC detects UPNP AV devices, however I tested this and though I was able find the devices, it would not play any videos.


I tried DJMount, which also detects UPNP AV devices. This one was very slow to load the directories and though it opened videos, they did not play smoothly.


I managed to set up Gigolo to detect my NAS on an SMB Windows Share, and so far this has had the most promising results. The video ran with less stutter though it ran better in mplayer using -cache 8192 to buffer at the start, but after a minute went back to stuttering.


In all cases the videos were ultimately not very watchable, even when close to the router to receive ideal signal


NFS is the only option I have not had the chance to explore yet and apparently could be a better option than the ones listed above.


It would be great if we could come closer to being able to do some of this and incorporate the Pandora into our home media suites!


Hopefully other people have useful things to contribute!


p.s. If anyone wants details of how I set up any of the above let me know, I just expect that other people are going to have far better suggestions!
 
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Maybe get a wifidongle for these tasks, as the internal wifi is know not to be too fast and stable, even if the connection itself is good.
 
Yeah, I actually only tested XBMC with the internal wifi, the others were tested out with a Edimax EW-7811UN wifi dongle. Even stood 5 ft from the router it wasn't so great. I wouldn't say i have the newest router in the world but it will let me transfer files from a usb drive on my pc wirelessly to my router which is wired to my nas at between 2.5-3mbps, which must be fast enough for playing back video.
 
Gigolo is built into the firmware, and can ease the pain of creating SMB network connections as well. Then you can use PanPlayer or any video playing tool you want. I strongly suggest either a Ethernet or Wifi dongle.
 
Don't know how to set up your NFS server, but on the client, should be:


* Create a mount point on your Pandora, ie.:


mkdir -p /mnt/nfs/video


* And mount:


mount IP_of_your_server:/path/to/the/share /mnt/nfs/video


You may have to specify the file system type:


mount -t nfs IP_of_your_server:/path/to/the/share /mnt/nfs/video
 
Don't know how to set up your NFS server, but on the client, should be:


* Create a mount point on your Pandora, ie.:


mkdir -p /mnt/nfs/video


* And mount:


mount IP_of_your_server:/path/to/the/share /mnt/nfs/video


You may have to specify the file system type:


mount -t nfs IP_of_your_server:/path/to/the/share /mnt/nfs/video
cool, i'll try this when i get home in about an hour!
 
Hmm okay, I tried this but each time it ended up timing out


I do have some news though! Yesterday when testing all of the above I was also transferring videos to the NAS from my main PC. By the looks of things it was stealing most of the network bandwidth, Now today when I try connecting through SMB in Gigolo and then playing mplayer through terminal ( i did mplayer -cache 8192 -fs -aspect 4:3 .gvfa/folder/film.avi ) it streams pretty much perfectly! It is a 695MB film 640 by 464 pixels (transformers animated movie if anyone wonders). Going to experiment with a few others, see how it goes.


I feel pretty silly now for berating the Pandora's abilities!
 
Somewhat of a side note...


If you have the luxury of a pure Linux environment (server, clients, etc...) you may want to look into sharing via SSHFS connections. I've found it to be very flexible and relatively easy to set up.


Back to your regularly scheduled, 'How do I make Linux talk to Windows?' conversation.
 
I suppose you can ping the server ?


Can you read the server's logs ?


How the NFS server config looks like ?
 
I suppose you can ping the server ?


Can you read the server's logs ?


How the NFS server config looks like ?
Hmm there are 49 instances of "

NFS client not be allowed to mount the directory.IP = (pandora IP address) , Directory = /Volume_2"!





The config is merely enable or disable NFS from what I can tell on the server, and it is enabled. I cant see any other information with it.





Not sure how to ping it.

 
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On your OP, open a terminal and type:


ping ip.of.your.server


Should work according to the error log.


Seems that your server share is /Volume_2


Are you the one who gave this name to this share ?


What exactly did you typed ?


I'm curious to know what happens if you type on your OP:


ssh ip.of.your.server


and:


telnet ip.of.your.server
 
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Ping varied from 133 to 200ms over wifi with internal wifi. also the server is copying files from my PC over wifi to the server


Hmm the server is split into Volume_1 and Volume_2 distinguishing between which drive of the 2 available bays it is. I wasn't entirely sure if I was correct the way I did it


What I ended up typing was:


sudo mkdir /mnt/nfs/NAS


sudo mount -t nfs ip.of.my.server:/Volume_2/Films /mnt/nfs/NAS


results for other things:


ssh: connect to host ip.of.my.server port 22: Connection refused


telnet: cannot connect to remote host (ip.of.my.sever): connection refused


Looking at my Network Shares, it does seem like though NFS is enabled on the system, the shares haven't got NFS enabled. When I go to modify them it asks me for a host. CIFS and FTP are enabled, just NFS and WebDav that are not. I must admit there are parts that aren't set up properly. I plan to sort out a Dynamic DNS as well as the FTP server properly, I've just been working on getting the data on there first
 
Thread hijack! :)


Using Gigolo the first time I wanted to try streaming using Panplayer. Since the shares from Gigolo turn up in '/home/kuru/.gvfs' I can't browse to them using Panplayer, no idea how to enable display of hidden files. I made a symbolic link using ln -s /home/kuru/.gvfs /home/kuru/shares which works from thunar and every other media player, but Panplayer does not see the folder, it only displays 'Applications' and 'Desktop' in '/home/kuru'.


So I think maybe this is some /home permission weirdness and try soft linking from the SD card using ln -s /home/kuru/.gvfs /media/4GB/shares which gives me the error message that the operation of creating a symbolic link is not permitted. Doing it as su results in the same.


What's going on here? How can I achieve network streaming in Panplayer? Is resistance futile?
 
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