Torrent Client on WD My Book Live?

Hey guys,

I am looking to buy a NAS device at some point over the next few days and am finding it difficult to decide on which one…

I will be using it for streaming HD content to my WD TV Live HD device and also for downloading torrents…

I would much prefer to get this device over the My Book World but only if torrent downloads are possible …

So my question is …Has anyone updated their My Book Live to download torrents?

Thanks!

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MBL doesn’t have a torrent client.

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Thanks for the response to my question …

After a lot of research I’ve found out that the Transmission feature pack will be available for the WD My Book Live from the 15th January 2011.

:smiley:

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interesting!

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Indeed!

I’ve just purchased a 2TB WD My Book Live drive from eBuyer for £140 …

Looking forward to getting it up and running!

I’ll keep the thread updated as I make progress etc …

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Narcotix wrote:

Thanks for the response to my question …

 

After a lot of research I’ve found out that the Transmission feature pack will be available for the WD My Book Live from the 15th January 2011.

 

:smiley:

 

Has your research got a weblink to this information - its very precise and its unlike WD to give any date let alone a precise date.

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Those Feature Packs are sorta like Third Party Firmware.

They aren’t coming from WD.

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TonyPh12345 wrote:

Those Feature Packs are sorta like Third Party Firmware.

 

They aren’t coming from WD.

Thanks, I understand now.

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Well I got my My Book Live Nas drive yesterday and have succesfully set it up to download torrents using the Transmission torrent client …

I was surprised how easy it was to do actually …

Happy Days!

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Hi Narcotix

Are you able to provide me with more information on how I can get transmission up and running on a MyBook Live?

Cheers

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Alright mate,

I used the following steps to add the feature pack manager to the WD My Book Live:

I’d recommend you update your firmware to the latest version before starting…

  1. First enable SSH access to the drive by going to:

http://ipaddress/UI/ssh (replace ipaddress with the ip of your drive)

(case is sensitive)

  1. Then, enable ssh.

  2. Download and install Putty from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

  3. Enter your IP address and leave everything else as is.

  4. Once connected use the Username: admin, Password: welc0me

  5. Then run the following  command to install the feature pack manager (be carefull, it is a single line ) :

cd /root;wget -q http://highlevelbits.free.fr/download-MBLIVE/fpinstaller/fpkmgr_install.sh -O /root/fpkmgr_install.sh;sh /root/fpkmgr_install.sh

Then wait for the feature pack manager to install … you should receive a message saying Install Completed once its done …

  1. Connect to the feature pack manager by going to   http://ipaddress/fpkmgr

  2. The password is: welc0me

  3. You can then choose which packs you want to install etc …

I hope this helps …

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Cheers mate.

Will give it a go and hopefully get it working!

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How to change location of the download folder?

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Look at the left bottom of the screen. There are two small button.

Click the left button and you will find the “Preferences” and other menu.

You can change the download folder in “Preferences”.

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You, guys, need to know that WD does not support using SSH to make changes to the drive’s function.  Doing so could both void the warranty and cause the drive to malfunction during later firmware updates. 

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I don’t follow your reasoning here.

Western Digital are shipping these devices with ssh readily available. Stating that the warranty is immediately voided as soon as you log in is thoroughly unreasonable. Warranty may be voided by misuse or neglect certainly, but using a built in feature to change a line in a configuration file qualifies as neither.

It’s quite possible that you can cause problems for yourself this way, but if the hardware fails through manufacturing defect and not through the user logging into the device, I don’t believe WD can absolve themselves of responsibility for said fault.

Do you have a reference for this? If I’m going to need to persue legal action to use a warranty as a consequence of logging into the device, I will be sending my live box back to the shop.

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There isn’t a single word about ssh access in user manual.

ssh is for advanced users only.

Personally i don’t care does WD support it or not. I just want my NAS to be much more just simple ‘external hdd’.

Installing custom things is quite easy using ‘apt-get’ thanks to that it does run Debian Lenny.

About transmission… never used feature packs and never will, but I believe that transmission you get from feature pack is not newest version. But is it possible to compile latest one yourself from source. I did it (version 2.13) and it works fine. Quite easy… basicly just './configure ; ./make and if you need dependencies install them with apt-get or compile yourself and add that to PATH.

One potencial problem is that more you install custom stuff, more dependencies you need and your system partition fills out very quickly. I wish they have it at least few gigabytes more in size.

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I probably agree with you. However if altering the OS, even if done competantly, immediately voids warranty then claiming would need to be done under the sales of goods act, and could get messy quickly. I think I’d return the drive and go with an alternative instead.

The internet seems to be split on that one, some people say it has apt-get available while others are using ipkg. If it’s a generic debian install on the local hard drive I’ll be overjoyed, I was expecting a thoroughly stripped down version with gcc missing. Resizing the system partition isn’t so bad.

Do you know what the onboard flash is used for? I initially assumed the OS was there, but this doesn’t seem to be the case

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jonj678 wrote:

I don’t follow your reasoning here.

 

Western Digital are shipping these devices with ssh readily available. Stating that the warranty is immediately voided as soon as you log in is thoroughly unreasonable. Warranty may be voided by misuse or neglect certainly, but using a built in feature to change a line in a configuration file qualifies as neither.

 

It’s quite possible that you can cause problems for yourself this way, but if the hardware fails through manufacturing defect and not through the user logging into the device, I don’t believe WD can absolve themselves of responsibility for said fault.

 

Do you have a reference for this? If I’m going to need to persue legal action to use a warranty as a consequence of logging into the device, I will be sending my live box back to the shop.

I’m sorry you misunderstood me.  First of all, I said that it “could” void the warranty.  I didn’t say it would.  I was speaking to the fact that they were talking about turning the My Book Live into a torrent client, which is not part of its original function or specifications.  Moreover, I was really speaking to the fact that if something goes wrong with the drive, we wouldn’t be able to provide support for restoring it to its original function.  If you want to take a look at our warranty policy, the link is below.  However, I was referring to two distinct points made in our policy:

  • The product was not used in accordance with Western Digital specifications and instructions.
  • The product was not used for its intended function (for example, desktop drives used in an Enterprise environment).

Warranty Policy

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp?custtype=end&lang=en

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That makes a great deal of sense, thank you for the clarification. In particular thanks for the link, I will read through it before doing anything imaginative with my device.

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