NetworkMounter 0.1 released on CSI

[Niels Leenheer]

Ever since I created my own (private) jukebox for the NMT I struggled with the build in networking capabilities. I have far to many files to just have on a single hard disk. Instead I use a server with a couple of different shares. That doesn't work that well with my jukebox so I created a little tool to mount my network shares on the local filesystem of the build-in hard disk. That way the jukebox sees just one extremely large hard disk.

I thought that maybe this little tool might also be handy for others, so I decided to release it on CSI.

Configuration is fairly easy. After installing NetworkMounter you need to edit the config.ini file which should be in the Apps/NetworkMounter directory. There is already an example config file which you can edit.

For each network share you first need to create a directory on the hard disk of your NMT. For example "External". Next edit the config.ini file and add a section that looks like this:

Code:

[External]
type = "cifs"
path = "/share/External"
share = "//192.168.1.2/Videos"
user = "rakaz"
password = "hithere"
options = ""

In the example above, I use "cifs" for windows network shares. You could also use "nfs" for NFS shares. The path is path to the directory I just created on the hard disk of the NMT. The other settings should be self explainatory. Except for "options", which can be left empty (for now).

The next time you reboot your NMT, the network shares will be automatically mounted and would appear as regular directories on the hard disk of your NMT.

[T800]

Nice idea. Any reason why you can't just use Symbolic Links?
That's what I'm using turning my 4 separate drives into one 5TB share.

[Niels Leenheer]

(09-01-2009 03:40 PM)T800 Wrote:  Nice idea. Any reason why you can't just use Symbolic Links?
That's what I'm using turning my 4 separate drives into one 5TB share.

If you have a Windows based server that won't work.

Also even if you have just one share to mount this tool is still useful. If you use the default way of managing network share you can never be sure the share is actually mounted. Only if you actually use the NMT to navigate to the network share it is mounted on demand. For a jukebox running on the internal hard drive this is a real problem because files you may want to start might not be available.

[cyberdude]

If I have no user name or password on my shares, do I just use null quotes?

"".

(09-01-2009 03:51 PM)Niels Leenheer Wrote:  If you have a Windows based server that won't work.

Also even if you have just one share to mount this tool is still useful. If you use the default way of managing network share you can never be sure the share is actually mounted. Only if you actually use the NMT to navigate to the network share it is mounted on demand. For a jukebox running on the internal hard drive this is a real problem because files you may want to start might not be available.

[Niels Leenheer]

(09-03-2009 12:43 AM)cyberdude Wrote:  If I have no user name or password on my shares, do I just use null quotes?
"".

Yes, that should work.

[avanegmond]

Could you give an example how you expect the share to be specified when it refers to an NFS export.

I tried several ways but non succeeded:

Code:

[CDs]
type        = "nfs"
path        = "/share/CDs"
share        = "//192.168.1.37/srv/samba/media/music"
user        = ""
password    = ""
options        = ""

or

Code:

[CDs]
type        = "nfs"
path        = "/share/CDs"
share        = "//192.168.1.37:/srv/samba/media/music"
user        = ""
password    = ""
options        = ""

or

Code:

[CDs]
type        = "nfs"
path        = "/share/CDs"
share        = "nfs://192.168.1.37:/srv/samba/media/music"
user        = ""
password    = ""
options        = ""

all failed to show the contents in /share/CDs

-
Aleg

[Laderius]

(09-03-2009 08:47 PM)avanegmond Wrote:  Could you give an example how you expect the share to be specified when it refers to an NFS export.

I tried several ways but non succeeded:

Code:

[CDs]
type        = "nfs"
path        = "/share/CDs"
share        = "//192.168.1.37/srv/samba/media/music"
user        = ""
password    = ""
options        = ""

or

Code:

[CDs]
type        = "nfs"
path        = "/share/CDs"
share        = "//192.168.1.37:/srv/samba/media/music"
user        = ""
password    = ""
options        = ""

or

Code:

[CDs]
type        = "nfs"
path        = "/share/CDs"
share        = "nfs://192.168.1.37:/srv/samba/media/music"
user        = ""
password    = ""
options        = ""

all failed to show the contents in /share/CDs

-
Aleg

you have an unnecessary : after the ip address... change that.

Code:

[CDs]
type        = "nfs"
path        = "/share/CDs"
share        = "nfs://192.168.1.37/srv/samba/media/music"
user        = ""
password    = ""
options        = ""

[avanegmond]

(09-03-2009 08:54 PM)Laderius Wrote:  you have an unnecessary : after the ip address... change that.

Code:

[CDs]
type        = "nfs"
path        = "/share/CDs"
share        = "nfs://192.168.1.37/srv/samba/media/music"
user        = ""
password    = ""
options        = ""

Hi

That was indeed a version I hadn't tried yet, but alas that one didn't do it for me either.

Thanks anyway
-
Aleg

[chris57]

I think you were right to have the ':' after the ip that's needed for NFS but not for SMB IIRC.

Thanks very much for this app if it does what I think it does it is exactly what I have been looking for.

I have my music and video folders on the same NAS but different shares. If I click on the one that I didn't use last then its process denied or WTF, now with this I can enter both shares in the config and after a reboot both shares are mounted so that whatever share I click works. Keeping everything crossed.

Is there a downloadable version somewhere as the CSI and the C200 are not getting on great yet.

[AquaFire]

Hello,

Your application should exactly addrss the problem I was facing . Since the CIFS network shares on my NAS (Western Digital Mybook) device were always dormant and were not active all the time on NMT Egreat EG-M34a.

For example if I go to the NMT interface and create the network links to shares on my NAS device and save them, they are only accessible during the time the NMT is turned on.

This is very frustrating since in Movie JukeBoxes all links point to the NAS shares which are not loaded every time by default. I would have to go back manually click on the network shares in the NMT main menu, then come back to the Jukebox and try running the movie file, which at times was still inaccessible. It was as if they are not auto mounted but have to mounted manually every time.

Using your application I have defined two network CIFS shares on my NAS device and have created two empty directories in the /share volume on the NMT harddisk. Now how can I be sure that the shares are auto mounted every time. I have edited the config.ini file correctly. I have tried going to the /share/xxxx directory which should show me the contents on the mounted network share, but they are still showing empty after a restart.

Any idea about how can I make it work successfully.

Thanks,
Regards.

[Bjur]

can you please make this tool work for csi on c-200?

[sminc]

This will work for NFS but it requires a quick tweak.

The .ini syntax is as follows

[Folder]
type = "nfs"
path = "/share/Folder"
share = "192.168.x.y:/raid/Folder"
user = ""
password = ""
options = "tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,soft,nolock"

Check your NFS server for the correct folder path, on mine I have to specify the full path from root even though the 'share' is listed as 'Folder' on my server.
The options are 'optional' but I would recommend you leave tcp in as I find tcp based NFS connections much quicker than UDP. Just search for 'unix mount syntax' if you need to check the other entries.

This produces the following mount command which is executed by the script.

/bin/mount -t nfs 192.168.x.y:/raid/Folder /share/Folder -o tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,soft,nolock

The bit that is breaking NFS is in ./scripts/mount.php

if ((!isset($share['user']) || $share['user'] == '') && (!isset($share['password']) || $share['password'] == '')) {
$options[] = "user=root";
}

Basically if user and password are blank then the script is forcing the 'user=root' option which is rejected by the mount command and the script fails. You can see the output from the script in the file .daemonresult which is how I spotted it.

Comment those three lines out and it works a treat.

[chris57]

Has anyone tried this on the C200 yet?

[avanegmond]

(10-28-2009 06:53 PM)sminc Wrote:  This will work for NFS but it requires a quick tweak.

The .ini syntax is as follows

[Folder]
type = "nfs"
path = "/share/Folder"
share = "192.168.x.y:/raid/Folder"
user = ""
password = ""
options = "tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,soft,nolock"

Check your NFS server for the correct folder path, on mine I have to specify the full path from root even though the 'share' is listed as 'Folder' on my server.
The options are 'optional' but I would recommend you leave tcp in as I find tcp based NFS connections much quicker than UDP. Just search for 'unix mount syntax' if you need to check the other entries.

This produces the following mount command which is executed by the script.

/bin/mount -t nfs 192.168.x.y:/raid/Folder /share/Folder -o tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,soft,nolock

The bit that is breaking NFS is in ./scripts/mount.php

if ((!isset($share['user']) || $share['user'] == '') && (!isset($share['password']) || $share['password'] == '')) {
$options[] = "user=root";
}

Basically if user and password are blank then the script is forcing the 'user=root' option which is rejected by the mount command and the script fails. You can see the output from the script in the file .daemonresult which is how I spotted it.

Comment those three lines out and it works a treat.

This worked indeed very much like a treat.

Super!!

Thank you for figuring this out.


@Niels:
Is there any logic behind this failure to mount when forced to "user=root"?
Is there any reason to force it to "user=root" when no user is given?
Is something going to fail (e.g. in the samba shares?) when these 3 lines are commented out?

-
aleg

[excal]

Sounds cool man, thanks for sharing.

Have you ran into any problems playing HD movies (after say 1-2) while having all your shares mounted? (i assume not...just figured i'd ask though).