NMT Apps:Alternative Installation

From NMTWiki

This article describes three alternative installations methods for the NMT Apps. One enables the Apps to be installed "remotely" on a *nix NFS share, one installs NMT Apps on a USB stick, making it possible to still keep the NMT diskless. The third way describes an alternative recovery method in case of entering a situation where the NMT Apps will not upgrade without deleting all content on the drive. Normally, the NMT Apps upgrade should give you the possibility to upgrade leaving your media untouched. Very useful when you need Typical format and are only given the Fresh option by the NMT Setup Wizard.

Contents 1 Installing NMT Apps on a NFS share 2 Installing NMT Apps on a USB stick 3 (Re)installing NMT Apps without formatting the internal hard disk 4 Related reading

Installing NMT Apps on a NFS share

User kayoz on the NMT forum has contributed with this method on how to install the NMT Apps from an NFS share:

• Make sure your server is running nfs-kernel-server
• Setup your share location with mnt folder
• wget firmware, for instance from from popcornhour.com site
• unzip firmware
• mv syb8634.nmt to your shared mnt directory
• dd if=syb8634.nmt skip=1 bs=60 | tar -xzvf - (this creates syb8634 the shared mnt directory)
• telnet your NMT
• mount 192.168.1.XXX/share/mnt /mnt
• Configure apps as you would any other Linux host either on the NMT or from you server via vi
• Enjoy a diskless NMT!

Installing NMT Apps on a USB stick

emveepee described a way to install NMT apps (torrent, UPnP AV server, FTP server, NFS and SMB server and the MyIHome http media server) on an alternative location, such as a USB device or a network share on a ext3 formatted disk.

Steps to create a NMT Apps drive on USB instead of Internal (Use at your own risk)

1. Create and format an ext3 partition on a USB hard disk drive or you can just use a pre-formmated vfat USB flash drive

2. Extract the syb8634 folder to the drive from the .nmt gzipped tarball based on lundman's explanation.

dd if=syb8634.nmt skip=1 bs=60 | tar -xzvf -

3. Eject the USB drive and plug into the NMT device

4. From telnet set up all the links (if telnet not activated => http://www.lundman.net/wiki/index.php/NMT:telnetd#Running_from_USB_stick)

# mkdir /mnt/temp
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/temp
# ln -s /mnt/temp/syb8634/ /mnt/
# mkdir /opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK
# mount /dev/sda1 /opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK

5. Now initialize the NMT apps

# /etc/init_nmt start

6. And if you want to see NMT apps in gaya

# /opt/sybhttpd/default/setups.cgi

(I can only see them I can't toggle them unless the drive is internal at some time, I am missing something here. see my note below)

In this example I used /dev/sda1 for the share and the apps you can have multiple partitions and even a swap drive on the usb

To shut down

# umount /opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK/
# /etc/init_nmt stop
# umount /mnt/temp/

This might be useful for other NMT based devices.

For some reason on my system if my USB drive is a FAT/FAT32 folder the file /mnt/syb8634/VERSION is always lower case as mnt/syb8634/version so Gaya doesn't find the file and the web UI doesn't work. From an ext3 USB drive this isn't a problem.

I can get around this if I have to create /mnt/syb8634/ manually instead of simply doing it as a symbolic link

# cd /mnt
# mkdir syb8634/
# cp temp/syb8634/* .
# mv version VERSION
# ln -s /mnt/temp/syb8634/bin/
# ln -s /mnt/temp/syb8634/etc/
# ln -s /mnt/temp/syb8634/lib/
# ln -s /mnt/temp/syb8634/nfsserver/
# ln -s /mnt/temp/syb8634/server/
# ln -s /mnt/temp/syb8634/web/

With this I can start all the apps from a USB drive and control them from the UI.

(Re)installing NMT Apps without formatting the internal hard disk

Some users have reported problems with the NMT Apps during an update scenario, where the normal option to leave current media files untouched and just re-install/update the NMT Apps is not available. For those that have no backup or option to completely re-install and format the disk, this method can come in handy.

1. Install and run telnetd, for instance from a USB drive/stick using lundman's procedure:
http://www.lundman.net/wiki/index.php/NMT:telnetd

2. Telnet to your NMT and type the following:

 BusyBox v1.5.0 (2008-10-28 15:33:35 MYT) Built-in shell (ash)
 Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

 / # umount /dev/hda3
 / # mount /dev/hda1 /mnt
 / # mkdir /opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK
 / # mount /dev/hda3 /opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK
 / # ln -s  /opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK share
 / # rm HARD_DISK_A3/
 / # killall gaya
 / # gaya http://127.0.0.1:8883/nmtwizard.cgi?windex=0

You should now see the NMT Setup Wizard with option for "Typical Setup (Installs NMT Applications without removing media contents)"

3. Select this option and follow the steps for the upgrade. The apps will be installed and the NMT will reboot.

If you get an error saying there is no upgrade available, you need to change the version to an earlier release in the file:

/mnt/syb8634/VERSION

Related reading

• Automatic Acoustic Management Settings Changer, for silencing an internal harddisk drive.
• Lundmans WIKI NMT Section.
• Alternate telnet version Telnet Tested On Istar NMT