If some would be nice enought to help me out that would be lovely.
What I’m trying to do if it’s even possible is create a symlink (symbolic link) of everything on my USB share on the main drive. So that I only need to add one share on my WDTV Live Streaming player and use the Media Library funciton in Folder View keeping things organized.
From my understanding from reading a post else shown below, the media player can hand these links just fine as if the files on the other share are actually all in one share. He did it on a linux based server so I was thinking I would be able to alter some files and create the links through SSH with putty.
The key to making this work is that Samba can be setup to serve the target file of a symlink rather than the symlink. This requires the following lines be in the smb.conf file (given my setup):
unix extensions = no [global section]
follow symlinks = yes [share section]
wide links = yes [share section]
Works just as I wanted: (1) can use ML without danger of video drives being touched, and (2) Movies and TV from multiple video drives end up merged into single shares.
Obviously creating all the symlinks by hand would be annoying with more than a few files, so I wrote a simple shell script that adds any missing symlinks; I just run this script anytime I add video files to the video drives, so trivial to keep up to date. Oh, yes, one complication was subdirectories under TV. They have to be recreated in the merged share (can't be symlinks). Not a big problem when using a script.
I got as far as SSH connected using PutTTy.
Logged in as root.
Navigated to /etc/samba/
Here is where I get stuck. As the other person only has a smb.conf file. Our live duo seems to have multiple and I am quite noob at this stuff. He only mention those following lines be edited in his one file. I used the command “vi smb.conf” to view the file and it does not have any of the three things. I did notice he lists global/share sections after them. In my smb.conf file it seems to point at other files so I went to take a look. I have made no changs b/c I do not know what to do. Below I list the files I found and what is in them.
smb-global.conf
I found the line “unix extensions = no” here in this file and am assuming this file is what he meant by [global section] and I wont have to alter this I guess so we are good on that.
[global]
load printers = no
printing = bsd
printcap name = /dev/null
disable spoolss = yes
log file = /var/log/samba/log.smbd
max log size = 50
dead time = 15
security = user
# auth methods = guest, sam_ignoredomain, winbind:ntdomain
encrypt passwords = yes
passdb backend = smbpasswd:/etc/samba/smbpasswd
create mask = 0775
directory mask = 0775
local master = yes
domain master = no
preferred master = auto
os level = 5
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=65536 SO_SNDBUF=65536
min receivefile size = 128k
use sendfile = yes
dns proxy = no
idmap uid = 10000-65000
idmap gid = 10000-65000
dont descend = /proc,/dev,/etc
admin users =
null passwords = yes
map to guest = bad user
guest account = nobody
unix extensions = no
acl check permissions = false
max protocol = SMB2
smb-global_veto.conf
There was only one line in here and I have no idea what it means or what this file actually does.
veto files = /.nflc_data/
overall_share
This file is where I begin to assume what he means by share section but the 2 lines he has set do not exist in this file. I was thinking off inserting them myself, again I am noob and not sure what to do. I believe what I need to do is add those 2 lines of “follow symlinks = yes” and “wide links = yes” I did research these lines and it seems this is exactly what I need to done. The share [Videos2] is my USB share so would I add those 2 lines under [Videos] which is my one share from the live duo and under “map read only = no” before ## END ##
## BEGIN ## sharename = Public #
[Public]
path = /shares/Public
comment = Public Share
public = yes
browseable = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
map read only = no
## END ##
## BEGIN ## sharename = Videos #
[Videos]
path = /shares/Videos
comment =
public = yes
browseable = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
map read only = no
## END ##
## BEGIN ## sharename = Videos2 #
[Videos2]
path = /shares/Videos2
comment =
public = yes
browseable = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
map read only = no
## END ##
I realize this is probably a record for longest post ever but I wanted to be informative for anyone else trying to do this in the future. I researched symbolic link and couldn’t really find enough information on this forum and throughout google. **bleep** I even researched how to make the link which I haven’t done yet due to being scared and this is what I play to run. Please help.
ln -s /shares/Videos2/* /shares/Videos/
