Running multiple instances of firefly on a NSLU2: How To?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Hopefully I wont make so much of a tit of myself with my second post.

I’ve seen from other posts that people are able to run multiple instances of Firefly on Linux devices.

I would also like to do this on my NSLU2. I access Firefly only through the PDA app WiFiTunes. Due to memory limitations of WiFiTunes (due to be addressed in a January update) I can only serve a library of about 500-1000 songs before WiFiTunes dies. As I have about 9,500 songs, I would like to create multiple libraries using Firefly, each of about 1000 songs, to provide access to all my songs for WiFiTunes.

I guess you can’t use one instance of Firefly to provide multiple libraries (even though I would only ever be accessing one library at a time).

I’ve seen from various posts that this can be done, e.g.:

@S80_UK wrote:

I set up four config files, each with its own port number, and each looking at the folders for the user for that instance of Firefly, and pointing to a unique database and log file. So for example, Firefly for my wife’s music looks at folders All, Wife, Me and Wife, Wife and Daughter. Firefly for my music looks at All, Me, Me and Wife, Me and Daughter. And so on. Then I just edited the start-up file S60mt-daapd to launch the four instances each with its own config file.

http://forums.fireflymediaserver.org/viewtopic.php?t=5590&highlight=multiple+library

Whilst I can figure out setting up the config files, I think, I am not too sure how I would need to edit the S60mt-daapd file to launch the four instances, as I don’t really know Linux that well.

Can any one provide any advice on what to do?

I’m running the latest version of Unslung on my NSLU2.
Also, will the NSLU2 take a real hit running multiple instances of Firefly, is there a recommended limit to the number that I run? And is there an alternative way of having multiple libraries, if you only ever plan on accessing one library at a time?

I imagine one elegant solution to all this, would be to set up static playlists, that are limited to 1000 songs each (and then arranged by genre or whatever) and then only serve information about these playlists, not the whole library. Thus, is it possible to configure Firefly so that when a client connects, it doesn’t provide details of the whole library, but just of the individual playlists, thus the memory problem wouldn’t occur for WiFiTunes? Or is this something that can only be configured on the client device side?
Cheers for any views.

[rpedde]

@prupert wrote:

Hopefully I wont make so much of a tit of myself with my second post.

Nobody else seems to worry, plus you’ve not done too bad. 🙂

I guess you can’t use one instance of Firefly to provide multiple libraries (even though I would only ever be accessing one library at a time).

Not really, although that’s something I might like to pursue at some point.

Whilst I can figure out setting up the config files, I think, I am not too sure how I would need to edit the S60mt-daapd file to launch the four instances, as I don’t really know Linux that well.

mostly that’s just an exercise in cut and paste. The lines look something like:

mt-daapd -c /opt/etc/mt-daapd/mt-daapd.conf

You’d just add another one like:

mt-daapd -c /opt/etc/mt-daapd/mt-daapd-library2.conf

etc.

I’m running the latest version of Unslung on my NSLU2.
Also, will the NSLU2 take a real hit running multiple instances of Firefly, is there a recommended limit to the number that I run? And is there an alternative way of having multiple libraries, if you only ever plan on accessing one library at a time?

I know there are people running to libraries, so at least that much runs fine.

That’s really the only way I can think of to address your issue.

I imagine one elegant solution to all this, would be to set up static playlists, that are limited to 1000 songs each (and then arranged by genre or whatever) and then only serve information about these playlists, not the whole library. Thus, is it possible to configure Firefly so that when a client connects, it doesn’t provide details of the whole library, but just of the individual playlists, thus the memory problem wouldn’t occur for WiFiTunes? Or is this something that can only be configured on the client device side?
Cheers for any views.

Kind of a pain to maintain, though. I may have some playlist functionality here soon (plalists of top “n” items, for example, as well as “order by random”, so you can pick 1000 random items from a playlist or something).

But I think most of the owrk needs to be done on the client side.

— Ron

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply, great support!

I guess I’ll set up a few instances of Firefly, and then help the dev of WiFiTunes with beta testing when he updates it in January.

Just out of interest, are there any actively developed open-source Windows clients that can access Firefly libraries available that are recommended?

[rpedde]

@prupert wrote:

Thanks for the reply, great support!

I guess I’ll set up a few instances of Firefly, and then help the dev of WiFiTunes with beta testing when he updates it in January.

Just out of interest, are there any actively developed open-source Windows clients that can access Firefly libraries available that are recommended?

The only ones I know of are the java ones like MyTunes and MyTunesRedux and GetItTogether.

But those are as much leeching tools as clients.

[Author]

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