Unoffical empeg BBS

Quick Links: Empeg FAQ | RioCar.Org | Hijack | BigDisk Builder | jEmplode | emphatic
Repairs: Repairs

Topic Options
#253834 - 10/04/2005 00:39 mount playlists via SMB/NFS?
toolman
member

Registered: 10/10/2001
Posts: 105
Loc: Wellington NZ
Hey guys;
I've been searching round but havent found any info on anyone considering this, so forgive me if it is covered somewhere that I couldnt find.

Is there a way with hijack or some other software to share the playlists as a filesystem. I know that the playlists can re-use the same file, which is effectively the same as a hard link.

This would mean that my linux box could mount the playlist structure and I could easily file browse the structures.

Is there are reason this hasnt been done yet? It only needs to be read only, as I understand that handling copying new files in etc would be a bit trickyer (tho maybe not impossible). Is NFS/SMB too bulky for the empeg?

The problem that I am trying to combat is this: XMMS has lesser handling ofr HTTP mp3 streams - it cant skip thru the song via the duration slider, and I can't drag and drop the stream links on to the xmms playlist from firefox - in windows/winamp I can do both, making playlist building (in winamp) easy.

If the files were on my local file system XMMS would handle both these. Anyone got any suggestions on how they achieve these tasks in Linux?
_________________________
ToolPeg: 010101886 Mk2a 120Gb GrillPeg: 010101956 Mk2a 80gb

Top
#253835 - 10/04/2005 01:30 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
The music stored on the empeg disks has been renamed so unless you knew that file 4af0 was the track you were looking for then it'd be pointless mounting it. Nothing to stop you from compiling NFS or CIFS apart from maybe memory constraints.

Top
#253836 - 10/04/2005 09:11 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: tman]
toolman
member

Registered: 10/10/2001
Posts: 105
Loc: Wellington NZ
yes, im aware that mounting the files directly would be no use; I was hopnig for a translation layer that emulated the playlist file structure over smb/nfs
_________________________
ToolPeg: 010101886 Mk2a 120Gb GrillPeg: 010101956 Mk2a 80gb

Top
#253837 - 10/04/2005 11:16 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Ah okay. Just checking

You could do it with a Samba VFS module which would display a more friendly view of the empeg HD. Somebody wrote one which converts FLAC/etc to WAV for his Audiotron so that might be something to take a look at.

Top
#253838 - 10/04/2005 11:18 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
Quote:
yes, im aware that mounting the files directly would be no use; I was hopnig for a translation layer that emulated the playlist file structure over smb/nfs

I once lashed-up sort-of about half-a-one using Samba's plug-in system. It was never near finished, though, and certainly wasn't reliable. It was just as a proof-of-concept in case we ever wanted to offer SMB access in future networked products. However, we've only done one future networked product so far -- Karma -- and, as it runs Ecos not Linux, you can't use Samba plug-ins on it. I suspect that if someone did write such a thing, it'd be very popular. (Hurdle #1: stock Empeg kernels are compiled without some vital component -- SYSVIPC maybe? -- without which Samba won't work, but I think Hijack kernels do have it.)

Peter

Top
#253839 - 10/04/2005 11:44 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31594
Loc: Seattle, WA
Quote:
I was hopnig for a translation layer that emulated the playlist file structure over smb/nfs

The only solutions similar to this have been tools which do all the necessary work on the PC's end. In other words, it's not the player's job to do the translation work in these cases. Mostly, their purpose is to synch your PC's music collection to your car player's music collection. An example of one such utility is "mp3tofid", which is used in combination with FTP and/or rsync. Do a BBS search to find threads discussing it.

Regarding Samba on the player: It's been discussed before, but no one's come up with an implementation that isn't a resource hog.

And finally, remember that the playlists have a lot of useful features that you wouldn't get if you did what you were suggesting. For instance, I don't think "Ignore as child" is a feature of a Samba filesystem.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

Top
#253840 - 10/04/2005 15:16 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
Quote:

Is there a way with hijack or some other software to share the playlists as a filesystem. I know that the playlists can re-use the same file, which is effectively the same as a hard link.



Dead easy. Just use Linux's "FTP fs" to "mount" the empeg's filesystem over FTP to the PC.

Done.

Top
#253841 - 10/04/2005 16:07 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: mlord]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31594
Loc: Seattle, WA
But then he doesn't get playlists-that-look-like-folders-on-a-samba-share. I think that's what he was asking for.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

Top
#253842 - 10/04/2005 16:40 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: tfabris]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
MMmm.. I suppose.

Perhaps some aspiring kernel hacker might code up a "playlist" filesystem for the empeg, then.. Pretty easy to do, and a good learning exercise.

Cheers

Top
#253843 - 10/04/2005 22:58 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: mlord]
toolman
member

Registered: 10/10/2001
Posts: 105
Loc: Wellington NZ
Ok sounds like there are most of the components out there, just need someone to glue it together. Can you mount a filesystem via FTP? I realise that this would still only show the FIDs etc, but interestedin how this is done in general

So what app do you linux geeks use to stream music to, if not xmms? any recommendatnios on better mp3 players for linux? specifically I'd like to be able to drag the stream links onto a players playlist to be able to coibble party playlists as drunkards ask for tracks. I don't know if the shortfall in dragging is to do with gnome or if its just xmms that needs to handle a dropped item - Im still getting my head around hte nix windowing model.

Decided that I'd spent enough time on windows and so switched to ubuntu - still learning the nooks 'n crannies
_________________________
ToolPeg: 010101886 Mk2a 120Gb GrillPeg: 010101956 Mk2a 80gb

Top
#253844 - 11/04/2005 10:56 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
Your PC linux box just needs the "FTP filesystem" support built into the kernel (I think it's an optional component -- google it).

There is another piece of software around here somewhere that creates a "symlink farm" on the player, basically linking fids to their track/playlist titles. This could be run on the player first, and then the FTP mount will give a nice browseable tree.

Cheers

Top
#253845 - 11/04/2005 13:51 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: mlord]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
FWIW, ftpfs (part of lufs; http://lufs.sf.net I think) is quirky at best, at least in my experience. For getting one or two files from point A to point B it's okay, but I'd imagine it'd fall over and die when trying to pretend to be a real browesable filesystem. It also didn't seem to be updated very recently last time I looked closely at it.
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

Top
#253846 - 11/04/2005 17:26 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: mlord]
toolman
member

Registered: 10/10/2001
Posts: 105
Loc: Wellington NZ
Hmm this sounds like a reasonable way to achieve it: I could mount the structure, then create the symlink farm thnngy on my local system (for performance - is this a reasonable assumption?)

Obviously i'd need to FTP mount to the same place every time, and would need to run a periodic symlink rebuild, but that sounds do-able!

I'll let ya'll know if I get it going and if it is useable, thanks guys.
_________________________
ToolPeg: 010101886 Mk2a 120Gb GrillPeg: 010101956 Mk2a 80gb

Top
#253847 - 11/04/2005 18:27 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
pim
addict

Registered: 14/11/2000
Posts: 474
Loc: The Hague, the Netherlands
Mp3tofid creates a symlink farm, but not on the player,
it creates it on the PC.

Then, you copy the links, dereferencing them, to the
player (best with rsync).

But there is a simple way to get the original file structure
back on the player, if you use mp3tofid. mp3tofid adds a
custom tag to each fid that contains the original location
of the tune or playlist. This is used for synchronisation
purposes, but can also be used to recreate the original
structure using hard or soft links, using a simple shell
script.

You could do that on the player, but I do that on a backup
I keep of my fids on a PC at work.

I also made a small CGI proggie that shows and streams
all tunes and playlists from a fid tree backup.

Pim

Top
#253848 - 11/04/2005 18:43 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
toolman
member

Registered: 10/10/2001
Posts: 105
Loc: Wellington NZ
And what does it take to get NFS going? MLord, does it need to be compiled into the kernel, and if so is it too be worthwhile? I can setup the FTP fs but expect NFS to be better?
_________________________
ToolPeg: 010101886 Mk2a 120Gb GrillPeg: 010101956 Mk2a 80gb

Top
#253849 - 12/04/2005 00:16 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
For NFS, you just need to reconfigure/recompile the empeg kernel (aka. "Hijack"). Full source code is at the Hijack link above.

But the real problem is that adding NFS server support to the kernel will chew up another 100KB or more of kernel memory. On a Mk2a unit running v2final (as opposed to a Mk2 unit, or running v3alpha), that should be fine.

Cheers

Top
#253850 - 13/04/2005 02:14 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: mlord]
toolman
member

Registered: 10/10/2001
Posts: 105
Loc: Wellington NZ
great - so who wants to volunteer an NFS enabled kernel? MLord, Im hinting towards you otherwise I need to either setup the empeg kernel compile environment, or patch my kernel for the FTP mount tool to work
_________________________
ToolPeg: 010101886 Mk2a 120Gb GrillPeg: 010101956 Mk2a 80gb

Top
#253851 - 13/04/2005 22:26 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
mcomb
pooh-bah

Registered: 31/08/1999
Posts: 1649
Loc: San Carlos, CA
Here, try this one. I was do a kernel build anyway. That is hijack 423 with NFSd enabled. No other changes.

-Mike
_________________________
EmpMenuX - ext3 filesystem - Empeg iTunes integration

Top
#253852 - 14/04/2005 07:50 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: mcomb]
toolman
member

Registered: 10/10/2001
Posts: 105
Loc: Wellington NZ
Your a star! Haven't tried it, so its pre-emptive praise, but I have full confidence
_________________________
ToolPeg: 010101886 Mk2a 120Gb GrillPeg: 010101956 Mk2a 80gb

Top
#253853 - 13/06/2005 01:29 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: mcomb]
toolman
member

Registered: 10/10/2001
Posts: 105
Loc: Wellington NZ
Sorry for my slow response; I have uploaded this kernel and created a /etc/exports file. What else might I need to do to get nfs to mount?

toolman@toolpc:~ $ s mount -t nfs 192.168.1.56:/ grill/
mount: RPC: Remote system error - Connection refused
toolman@toolpc:~ $
_________________________
ToolPeg: 010101886 Mk2a 120Gb GrillPeg: 010101956 Mk2a 80gb

Top
#253854 - 13/06/2005 15:44 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
Portmap? IIRC an NFS-serving kernel still needs a userland portmap.

Peter

Top
#253855 - 13/06/2005 21:10 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: peter]
toolman
member

Registered: 10/10/2001
Posts: 105
Loc: Wellington NZ
hmm yes I read this on the NFS faq. Anyone care to comment on how one might get portmap going on the empeg?

I figured out that this process wont work anyway, I wanted to create a symlink folder structure from the fids, but I think the mp3tofids does it the other way around
_________________________
ToolPeg: 010101886 Mk2a 120Gb GrillPeg: 010101956 Mk2a 80gb

Top
#253856 - 17/06/2005 14:55 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
pim
addict

Registered: 14/11/2000
Posts: 474
Loc: The Hague, the Netherlands
Yes, mp3tofid works the other way around, but it stores the original location of the tune in a custom tag. So if you your player is filled using mp3tofid/rsync, you can use a simple script that create a symlink tree from fids to human-readable filenames.

Pim

Top
#253857 - 03/07/2005 03:13 Re: mount playlists via SMB/NFS? [Re: toolman]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
Quote:
Anyone care to comment on how one might get portmap going on the empeg?


Go dig through the debian arm distribution. Back when the empeg first started shipping, quite a few people including myself would grab a debain arm package, get the binary out, and run it on the empeg.

The RioCar.org developer section has some not often updated, but still useful hints to get you going.

Top