Is there not a way to play videos from my Linux server without having to run and configure samba?
NFS 
apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
DNLA
… should I go on
garrett85 wrote:
Is there not a way to play videos from my Linux server without having to run and configure samba?
In what sense do you think your Linux machine is a “server” if it is not running any server software? 
Samba is quite trivial to setup. I can easily show you the few lines you need to add to the smb.conf file for a basic home network video server setup. Also, many distros have GUI tools for configuring Samba (and NFS) shares. Samba gets complicated only if you want to do sophisticated things like merge directories on separate drives or enforce security policies. I have been using SMPs with a Samba server for two years, with zero hiccups. Much more reliable than the ever changing Windows file sharing.
Thanks I would appreciate that. I have setup the smb config file but my setup is still unsuccessful. I did a test run first on my desktop and it’s working fine, but when I used pretty much the exact same setup file and process for the Linux box that is to be my server it either doesn’t connect, connects but says I have entered a invalid username or password, or it lets me in but says there are no available shares.
What I want to do is have a share setup so that any computer or WD TV Live device on the network can stream the videos without entering a username or passoword, and of course read only permissions. My next step will be to turn the media server into a media cloud so that I could also access and stream the videos from outside network.
I may be mistaken but I think the WDTV wants write permissions.
Changes to smb.conf file:
In the [global] section change the workgroup line:
workgroup =MYGROUP
(make sure you set this to the same thing on the SMP)
Then add share definitions at the bottom of the file.
I have mine like this:
[Video1]
comment = Video disk #1 on file server
path = /Video1
public = yes
browseable = yes
writeable = no
That is all that should be required to allow the SMP to access Video1 as a share. Just make sure to restart your Samba server (how you do this depends on your distro). You should have both smbd and nmbd running after you start “Samba.”
As I recall, the SMP will still ask for user/passwd, but just use the defaults, because it doesn’t matter. Many Samba clients automatically ask for user/passwd even if not required (due to SMB specifics). The SMP will remember the login info so it won’t ever ask you again. Note that making a share public is only reasonable on a home network where you control machines and people that can connect to the share. If this is not the case, let me know as then this is not a good idea (though because share is not writeable, limited exposure to problems).
If this does not work for you, then get back to me and we can diagnose.
As somebody else noted, the SMP requires write permission on a share if you want to use Media Library. The above share definition is not writeable, so you cannot add it to Media Library, but you can still access it as a Windows Share.
Now I personally don’t want the SMP or any other device writing in my Video shares, to avoid any possibility of corrupting them, but I also wanted to the use the Media Library. I also wanted all my movies from multiple drives to be under a single Movies share. This can be accomplished by setting up a separate share that has symlinks to the actual video files, and making that share writeable. Requires a rather specific set of Samba settings, but works great. Let me know if you are interested in that.
I have public set to yes and that should be fine for my home network but what does setting public to yes actually do? Though I am running this from in the house I am also runnign the Plex media cloud server allowing me to watch movies from anywhere outside my network, so do I need to be concerned about my samba settings?
I also don’t want to allow the WD TV Live to have write permissions, WD, please change your game on this issue. My kid could simply hit delete on the TV Lives remote and bam, movie(s) gone. Could you tell me a little more info and how to get around that please?
WD wants write permissions so that the media library can create thumbnails, xml files for backdrops, and info for resume if you left a movie and want to play from where you left off.
garrett85 wrote:
I have public set to yes and that should be fine for my home network but what does setting public to yes actually do? Though I am running this from in the house I am also runnign the Plex media cloud server allowing me to watch movies from anywhere outside my network, so do I need to be concerned about my samba settings?
I also don’t want to allow the WD TV Live to have write permissions, WD, please change your game on this issue. My kid could simply hit delete on the TV Lives remote and bam, movie(s) gone. Could you tell me a little more info and how to get around that please?
Public means no password required to access a share (and access to share is with the “guest account” user, e.g., nobody).
This setting is a security risk mainly if you make your Samba server accessible from outside your network (and if share is writeable). Generally with home setups, this means you have to explicitly set your router to forward packets with SMB-related target ports (e.g., TCP 445) to the machine running Samba. I don’t know anything about the Plex server, but generally running one server accessible through your router should not compromise other services on that machine. If you are really paranoid about this, though, you can set the server’s firewall to block SMB-related traffic from all but your LAN ip addresses. (Obviously when you make a server accessible to the Internet, you are taking some risk since you are relying on that server having no vulnerabilities! Personally, I would not trust a media server, but that is up to you.)
As for the writing thing, yes, that is annoying to me to, as I do not want any writing being done on my Video drives (for several very good reasons). Like I said previously, there is a solution that involves having the share be on a separate smaller drive/partition, with symlinks to the files on the video drives. That is how I have my Samba set up: external drives mounted as /Video1, etc., each containing a Movies and a TV subdirectory, then a Movies share and a TV share on another drive. The Movies and TV shares contain symlinks to the actual video files on /Video1, etc., plus all the Media Library files that the SMP unit generates (Movies and TV are writeable). The other advantage of this setup is that all movies on all the Movies subdirs on the /VideoN drives end up merged in the single Movies share. I.e., this kill both the SMP writing problem and the merging files from multiple drives problem all at once. Let me know if you are interested in how to do this, as it involves a somewhat non-obvious set of Samba settings.
