Ushare - UPnP Media Server for Linux

Introduction

uShare is a Upnp (TM) A/V Media Server based on GmediaServer. It implements the server component that provides UPnP media devices with information on available multimedia files. uShare uses the built-in http server of libupnp to stream the files to clients. uShare is written for the GeeXboX project. It is designed to provide access to multimedia contents to GeeXboX but can of course be used by any other UPnP client device. It should compile and run on any modern POSIX compatible system such as Linux. uShare is free software - it is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Supported File Formats List

• Video files : asf, avi, dv, divx, wmv, mjpg, mjpeg, mpeg, mpg, mpe, mp2p, vob, mp2t, m1v, m2v, m4v, m4p, mp4ps, ts, ogm, mkv, rmvb, mov, qt
• Audio files : ac, ac3, aif, aiff, at3p, au, snd, dts, rmi, mp1, mp2, mp3, mp4, mpa, ogg, wav, pcm, lpcm, l16, wma, mka, ra, rm, ram
• Image files : bmp, ico, gif, jpeg, jpg, jpe, pcd, png, pnm, ppm, qti, qtf, qtif, tif, tiff
• Playlist files : pls, m3u, asx
• Subtitle files : dks, idx, mpl, pjs, psb, scr, srt, ssa, stl, sub, tts, vsf, zeg
• Various text files : bup, ifo

Supported Devices

• Xbox 360
• D-Link DSM-320
• Roku SoundBridge M2000 Network Music Player devices
• and others

Installation

The following UPnP library is required to build and run uShare: Linux SDK for UPnP Devices (libupnp), 1.3.1 or later

OpenLink - Ipkg (PowerPC)

• Install Ipkg on the Linkstation (for end-users) and enable the NSLU2 Feed: Ipkg Package List: PowerPC
• Install ushare

ipkg install ushare

Compile from Source

1. Install the Precompiled C development environment, running on the LS
2. Then get the source files install them

wget http://ushare.geexbox.org/releases/ushare-0.9.7.tar.bz2
wget http://ovh.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/upnp/libupnp-1.3.1.tar.gz

Configure, make and install libupnp1.3.1

tar -xvzf libupnp-1.3.1.tar.gz 
cd libupnp-1.3.1
./configure
make 
make install

Then configure, make and install ushare

tar -xvjf ushare-0.9.7.tar.bz2
cd ushare-0.9.7
./configure
make 
make install

Configuration

At first you need to be sure that you have setup a multicast route for UPnP messages. If you don't but have a default route attributed, then this later will be used. Otherwise, simply declare a new route for UPnP multicasts (for example using eth0 interface) :

route add -net 239.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 eth0

To complete the installation, you must edit /etc/ushare.conf to add the location(s) of your media files.

/etc/ushare.conf

# /etc/ushare.conf
# Configuration file for uShare

# uShare UPnP Friendly Name (default is 'uShare').
USHARE_NAME=

# Interface to listen to (default is eth0).
# Ex : USHARE_IFACE=eth1
USHARE_IFACE=

# Port to listen to (default is random from IANA Dynamic Ports range)
# Ex : USHARE_PORT=49200
USHARE_PORT=49200

# Directories to be shared (space or CSV list).
# Ex: USHARE_DIR=/dir1,/dir2
USHARE_DIR=

Then you can create a start/stop script

/etc/init.d/ushare

#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Required-Start: $local_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start:  2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: start and stop ushare
# Description:
### END INIT INFO

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/usr/local/bin/ushare
NAME=ushare
DESC="uShare UPnP A/V Media Server"
PIDFILE=/var/run/ushare.pid

[ -r "/etc/ushare.conf" ] && . /etc/ushare.conf

# abort if no executable exists
[ -x $DAEMON ] || exit 0

# abort if no shared directory is defined
[ -z "$USHARE_DIR" ] && exit 0

set -e

checkpid() {
  [ -e $PIDFILE ] || touch $PIDFILE
}
case "$1" in
  start)
    echo -n "Starting $DESC: $NAME"
    checkpid
    start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --oknodo \
      --make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE \
      --exec $DAEMON -- $USHARE_OPTIONS
    echo "."
  ;;
 stop)
    echo -n "Stopping $DESC: $NAME"
    start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 2 --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDFILE
    echo "."
  ;;
  reload|force-reload)
    echo -n "Reloading $DESC: $NAME"
    start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDFILE --e$
    echo "."
  ;;
  reload|force-reload)
    echo -n "Reloading $DESC: $NAME"
    start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDFILE --e$
    echo "."
  ;;
  restart)
    $0 stop
    $1 start
  ;;
  *)
    N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
    echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
    exit 2
  ;;
esac

exit 0

Run at Startup

And run the following to have it startup and stop on system start/shutdown

cd /etc/rc.d/rc2.d
ln -s ../init.d/ushare S99ushare
cd ../rc0.d
ln -s ../init.d/ushare K02ushare
cd ../rc6.d
ln -s ../init.d/ushare K02ushare

Usage

uShare runs from the console only. It supports the usual --help option which displays usage and option information.

Command Line Options

-n	--name=NAME	Set UPnP Friendly Name (default is 'uShare')
-i	--interface=IFACE	Use IFACE Network Interface (default is 'eth0')
-p	--port=PORT	Forces the HTTP server to run on PORT
-c	--content=DIR	Share the content of DIR directory (default is './')
-w	--no-web	Disable the control web page (enabled by default)
-v	--verbose	Set verbose display.
-D	--daemon	Run as a daemon.
-V	--version	Display the version of uShare and exit
-h	--help	Display this help

uShare expects at least one directory argument (-c argument), specifying where multimedia files are stored. You should probably also use the -i option to specify which interface uShare should listen on.

 ushare -i eth0 -c /shares

Web Interface

After starting ushare you can go to the web interface to manage it's shares: http://linkstation:49200/web/ushare.html

References

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