Help in accessing A300 with a MAC through NSF

[mike0zero]

I have read many links to try and set up my A300 so I can it can read my shares via NFS on the OSK Lion all without success.

I do the following:

Set up on mac via disk utility - NFS mounts as follows:
Remote NFS URL: nfs://192.168.9.115/share )ip address of the PCH A300)
Mount location: /network/movies (I presume you can call movies anything).

Tick ignore "set user ID" privileges and then press verify, mac comes back with "The NFS server appears to be functional"

My A300 is on and NFS sharing enabled downstairs but I cannot see any sharing folders on my mac, do I need to set up on the PCH A300 for me to see anything?

I presumed I did there so have tried to set this up on network shares on the A300 as follows:

ip address: 192.168.9.XXX (ip address of iMac)
share folder: imac (name of computer)
share:?? not sure on this one but have tried lots of options

I get to the password screen and it just rejects me every time, I have tried different combinations but to no avail but I ma sure I am doing something very basic wrong.

Any help with somebody who has A300 talking to their Mac via NFS on OSX Lion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mike

[Auggie]

Be advised that the NFS utility within Disk Utility is used only for mounting external NFS shares on a Mac (e.g. mounting your NMT drives on your Mac via NFS); if you are trying to mount your Mac drives on your NMT via NFS, there is no built-in GUI in OS X to do so. You either must issue command lines via Terminal or buy commercial software such as "NFS Manager."

For Terminal commands, you need to:

1) Edit/create a "exports" file within /etc folder (sudo nano exports)

2) Make entries in the exports file that has the path to the folder(s) you want to share via NFS, and user access/permission levels (e.g. "/Volumes/Mac HD/My Videos" -mapall=root -network 10.0.1 -mask 255.255.255.0)

3) Restart OS X's NFS server (sudo nfsd restart)

If you have any spaces in the path, be warned that you will not be able to normally access it from your NMT via the generic "NETWORK BROWSER;" you must instead create a NETWORK SHARE entry and access it that way.

[mike0zero]

Thanks Auggie for the swift reply.

What your suggesting via terminal might be a little beyond me I am afraid, anyway for me the main aim is to mount PCH drive on my mac via NFS but still cannot seem to do this simple thing....doh..

For me to accomplish this do I just need to set this up just on the mac or will it require settings to be inputted on the PCH as well, if so any chance of a quick step by step.....only of course if you have time, or anybody else for that matter.

Waiting in anticipation.

Regards

[Auggie]

If mounting your NMT drive onto your Mac, then you are following a correct method by using Disk Utility.

But you first must setup NFS sharing on your NMT. To do so, you must first have NMT Apps installed on your NMT drive, then have the NFS Server application running.

[TheAxledentalDJ]

Its easier to setup NFS shares on Mac OS X 10.7.x using NFS Manager http://www.bresink.com/osx/NFSManager.html

Its not a free app, but keeping it run in demo mode with the nag screen, is basically as free as you get and NFS shares still work and this is what I've been using for about 2 years since Snow Leopard and I've used it on my C-200 and now my A-300. Doing it the other way, via terminal commands, never worked for me.
So, here's what you do:
1. Launch NFS manager
2. Click "Close Window" on reminder that its running in Demo mode.
3. On Local Computer NFS Manager window, on left column, Click on "Share Definitions".
4. On right side you see a "+" "-". Click on the "+". This adds /Users in the above little window field.
5. Click on to hilight the /Users
6. Click on "Select" button and a drop down box comes up and find and select your (example) external attached USB drive of where your movies are stored on. Say, for example mine is HDD "5". I select that.
7. Use "Options" thats under the "Folder to share:"Volumes 5 set to "Share to Read Only".
User mappings drop down box is set to: Map "root" to unprivileged user ("nobody").
Minimum Security drop down box set to: System standard only
Access permission drop down box set to: Allow access from any network and computer.
8. Click on the "Apply" button. And your almost done.

Thats what I have and it works. Obviously, you'll need to know the IP address on you macs network settings for ethernet and as an example mine is set to a manual IP and DHCP address of 169.254.47.206.
On my A-300 network settings for Network shares:
IP/Host name: 169.254.47.206
Shared folder: /Volumes/5
Shared name: 5

My Yayman's YAMJ library.xml:

PHP Code:

<playerpath>nfs://169.254.47.206/Volumes/5/Movies5/</playerpath> 


I hope this helps you.

[mike0zero]

Thanks TheAxledentalDJ for taking the time to respond

I will give this a whirl when I get home tonight, sounds really easy doing it this way, I will let you know how I get on.

Thanks

Mike

[mike0zero]

Hi TheAxledentalDJ

Tried all the settings as above, went to my A300, it sees the shares then asks for password to my iMac, I put these in it then says cannot connect due to invalid username or password.......doh

So near yet still cannot connect.

Anymore advice??

Regards

Mike

[TheAxledentalDJ]

Power off A-300 by holding power button for 6 seconds and get red led. Restart iMac. Are you using a router to connect the A-300 with and you iMac to? Once the iMac is backup and running and has IP adress for ethernet and internet access, turn the A-300 back on and see if that helps? Make sure your using NFS protocol on the A-300 network shares.

[mike0zero]

Thanks mate

Tried all that and just still would not let me connect, in the end I have packaged the A300 up and will return it to vendor to many things not quite right:

Cannot access my iMac
Cannot delete network shares that have been incorrectly set up by me therefore have to hard reset
Machine sometimes will just hang resulting in re boot
Gigabit connection very slow
Seems very sluggish GUI
No operating instructions (not even on the pCH website) this is ok if you know your way around networking etc but in this day and age this is unforgivable not including these from the word go.


Its such a shame cos I really wanted to like this player, the video (23.976) and sound (DTS-HD) are awesome and the main reasons why I moved from my mac mini as my HTPC, but will go back for the time being and wait a few more months to see how things settle, maybe I would have more lucy with the Dune players on the networking front.

Anyway thanks for the device form all and might be back soon.

[TheAxledentalDJ]

Awll.. You could have reset A-300 to factory defaults, remove internal HDD(if there is one), and update to Dec. 7th firmware and then use a 8gb flash drive and attatch that to your A-300 and put the NMT Apps on it, run FTP server and add a bluray rip bdmv folder to test playback of the movie and see if its still a keeper?

[mike0zero]

Well I finally got my new A300, followed TheAxledentalDJ instructions on setting up NFS and it streams perfectly from my iMac to the PCH fine although a couple of blue ray rips are stuttering with DTS-HD, however what I really want to do is transfer the movies to the PCH and play them from the internal 2TB drive i have installed but I do not know how to transfer files over NFS, when I look into my shared folder in OSX I only see the A300 as a Samba share not NFS, must I do something else in addition to the instructions above to enable file sharing in this mode.

When I open the shared A300 file through finder it allows me to access the hard drive and USB stick, I can transfer files onto USB but not to the hard drive, when I drag a file across it says I do not have permission to read the file....damn!!! so I really am at odds on what to do next.

I would be happy with transfer to A300 via SMB and streaming through NFS although I would rather have both protocols going through NFS as I believe it is slightly faster....

Any advice form the guru's out there would be welcome so I can start to watch some movies at long last in proper 23.976hz.....

Regards

[mike0zero]

Just a little update just in case it might help somebody else.

Although I can stream to my A300 from my iMac without problem I cannot transfer files from my iMac through NFS, tried all different permutations through NFS manager but no joy, anyway I have two other solutions for getting files onto my A300, for streaming NFS is great.

1. SMB share works fine for transferring files to the A300 but as I use Lion 10.7.3 it will not allow me to stream from my iMac, Apple changed the way SMB sharing works from Snow Leopard.

2. FTP the A300 through Filezilla, this works really well.

Both options are ok although I was not happy with the transfer speed, set A300 to auto using Gigabit I was getting SMB: 7 - 8MB / FTP: 11 - 13MB which I thought was a little slow for Gigabit, however after taking the advice from the sticky under 300 series hardware installation on re setting the rwin values via telnet I am now getting SMB - 14mb / FTP - 22 - 25MB!!!! massive difference, twice as fast, plus my download speed to the internet from the A300 is now at full speed where as previously it would only download at 2-3mb's, this is crucial for BBC iplayer and youtube hi def.

At the moment I'm very happy with the A300, especially as this is my second unit (first returned for too many issues).

I sold my mac mini HTPC to make way for this little machine as it plays 23.976 flawlessly where as my mac mini 2.5 ghz i5 would stutter every 40 seconds through OSX or through bootcamp windows 7 the video would be smooth but then the lip sync would be out, don't get me wrong when I had XBMC going through the mini it was like hot knife through butter, the front end was simply gorgeous and so so quick, but in the end it was the actual film that was important and in that respect the A300 performs much better for video and HD sound.

for me I cannot believe how much better 23.976hz video is compared to either 25/30/60 hz material, it looks absolutely amazing!!!

[TheAxledentalDJ]

I still think the A-300 internal HFS formatted HDD stays as read only, but sometimes can be writeable. The wiki states Syabas supports HFS read only HDD up to model C-200.