GMediaServer - GNU UPnP media server (MIPSel)

From NAS-Central Buffalo - The Linkstation Wiki

Revision as of 22:37, 10 September 2006

Overview

GMediaServer is a UPnP compatible media server for the GNU system. It is part of the GNU project.

GMediaServer serves audio and video files to certain network connected media players. Most hardware media players only play music and/or video—they don't provide the media themselves. Those media files have to come from a device on the network. GMediaServer is a server for such UPnP compatible media players, including:

• NETGEAR Wireless Digital Music Player (MP101)
• Linksys Wireless-B Music System (WMLS11B), Wireless-B Media Link for Music (WML11B)
• Philips Streamium SL300i, Streamium RC9800i, Streamium SLA5520
• Omnifi DMS1
• SMC EZ Stream 11Mbps Wireless Audio Adaptor (SMCWAA-B)
• D-Link DSM-520 Wireless HD Media Player
• Roku SoundBridge Network Music Player M1000
• Terratec NOXON audio, NOXON 2 audio
• Pinnacle ShowCenter 200

Other UPnP media players (including software based) may work as well—see the manual for a more complete list.

GMediaServer is written in C by Oskar Liljeblad. It should compile and run on any modern POSIX compatible system such as GNU/Linux. GMediaServer is a console based application which is usually run in the background. It is free software, licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Pre-requisites

1. Linkstation2
2. OpenLink - mipsel-openlink-052b.zip (from the downloads section and installed as per README).
3. Precompiled C development environment, running on the LS - mipsel-tools-2.tgz (from the downloads section and installed with the install.sh).
4. mipsel-screen-1.tgz (from the downloads section and installed with the install.sh). (NOT REQUIRED but the compile takes ages and this helps if you get disconnected when it is running).
5. /usr/bin/sort extracted from the debian package coreutils-5.2.
6. gmediaserver-latest.tar.gz from http://www.gnu.org/software/gmediaserver/
7. obtain required libraries.

Required Libraries

The libraries were downloaded from my local debian mirror and I used alien -t <debfile> to convert them to tgz files which were extracted into the root of the link station.

• libid3-3.8.3-3.8.3.tgz
• libupnp-dev-1.2.1.tgz
• libid3-3.8.3-dev-3.8.3.tgz
• libupnp0-1.2.1.tgz

Procedure

( If you add media you should restart the server as it will need to rescan the directories )

1. Extract gmediaserver-latest.tar.gz
2. cd gmediaserver-0.11.0
3. ./configure --prefix=/mnt/hda/gmedia
4. make
5. make install
6. Insert init script into /etc/init.d (See Below)
7. cd /etc/rc.d/rc2.d
8. ln -s ../init.d/gmserver S98gmserver
9. cd ../rc0.d
10. ln -s ../init.d/gmserver K02gmserver
11. cd ../rc6.d
12. ln -s ../init.d/gmserver K02gmserver
13. Disable the pcast server (use the web interface).
14. run the gmedia init script with a start parameter.
15. Wait a while as it scans the whole collection on every startup.

( you should edit the script to change the directory that should be shared. )

#!/bin/sh
#
# gmediaserver - startup script for gmediaserver 
# This goes in /etc/init.d and gets run at boot-time.
#
# . /etc/timezone

PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin

GM_HOME=/mnt/hda/gmedia
NAME=`hostname`
DIR=/mnt/hda/share/home_backup/media/mp3

if ! [ -x $GM_HOME/bin/gmediaserver ]; then
       exit 0
fi


case "$1" in

   start)
       echo  "Start services: gmediaserver"
       $GM_HOME/bin/gmediaserver -b -i eth0 --friendly-name=$NAME \
           -o $GM_HOME/log/server.log -v1 $DIR
       ;;
   stop)
       echo  "Stop services: gmediaserver"
       /sbin/start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --exec $GM_HOME/bin/gmediaserver
       ;;
   restart)
       stop
       sleep 1
       start
       ;;
   *)
   echo "usage: $0 { start | stop | restart}" >&2
   exit 1
   ;; 
                                                                                             
esac

exit 0