Western Digital Netcenter

[natm]

Help

I have a WD Netcenter, which I managed to get for a bargain price. I hoped to use as it NAS streaming audio files to my Soundbridge but appear to have run into a dead end in terms of finding the right set up to get it working.

Can anyone give any help or advice as to what I need to to do to get the thing working as a media server without a PC running. I think that this is my last chance before I get sell up and start again.

All help gratefully recieved

Nat

[rpedde]

@natm wrote:

Help

I have a WD Netcenter, which I managed to get for a bargain price. I hoped to use as it NAS streaming audio files to my Soundbridge but appear to have run into a dead end in terms of finding the right set up to get it working.

Can anyone give any help or advice as to what I need to to do to get the thing working as a media server without a PC running. I think that this is my last chance before I get sell up and start again.

All help gratefully recieved

Nat

The key for any nas is to look for something that has replacement firmware. Particularly repacement firmware that can run unslung optware. There are lots of platforms that do, and those are probably easiest to modify to do interesting things with.

I’m sure that eventually the WD will get hack to run optware, but it’s a waiting game until someone with the ability and desire gets one to hack on. Might take a few months. If you are willing to wait, I think eventually it will be there.

If you don’t want to wait, then you’ll want to look at other avenues for a nas/media server. Someone asked the same question on this thread and I give my opinion.

Generally, though, I think the NSLU2 is probably the best device around in terms of ease of hacking, thorough documentation, and ability to do interesting stuff.

For what it’s worth.

— Ron

[scousethemoose]

Its good to see someone is interested in using firefly on the Netcenter. Has anyone had any further success?

I’ve managed to install twonkyvision on my 160gb using a Maxtor Shared Storage package and a modified firmware.

http://www.brennwertheizung24.de/wdncforum/index.php?mode=viewthread&forum_id=13&thread=11&sid=632732b52a2027660eee894b7f9cba0c

I then stumbled accross this tutorial which had twonkyvision and firely both installed on the same NAS.

http://www.k0lee.com/hpmediavault/iTunes/index-old.html

So now for my question, since the key to getting this to work is a modified firmware and I have been able to install twonkyvision is it possible to install firefly using the Firefly Maxtor Shared Storage Package?

If it is possible can someone advise me of the appropriate modifications in order to achieve a successful install.

Thanks.

[scousethemoose]

Ok, so I thought I’d follow the instructions for the MSS setup, using this guide.

http://wiki.fireflymediaserver.org/MSS_Installation

I figured since my twonkyvision install is the MSS version, I might have some success using this guide. Being a complete novice with linux, 2 days and counting I have gotten so far using this guide.

# echo “src nslu2 http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/mss/cross/unstable” > /opt/etc/ipkg.conf
# echo “src firefly http://ipkg.fireflymediaserver.org/mipsel” >> /opt/etc/ipkg.conf
# ipkg update
# ipkg install mt-daapd
# ipkg install mss-libhelper
# ipkg install mss-ld-so

I am able to execute the first two commands successfully. I have double checked the ipkg.conf and they appear.

The issue arises when I perform the ipkg update command, I am receiving the following message.

# ipkg: not found

Does anyone know what is causing this? Thanks

[rpedde]

@scousethemoose wrote:

Ok, so I thought I’d follow the instructions for the MSS setup, using this guide.

http://wiki.fireflymediaserver.org/MSS_Installation

I figured since my twonkyvision install is the MSS version, I might have some success using this guide. Being a complete novice with linux, 2 days and counting I have gotten so far using this guide.

# echo “src nslu2 http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/mss/cross/unstable” > /opt/etc/ipkg.conf
# echo “src firefly http://ipkg.fireflymediaserver.org/mipsel” >> /opt/etc/ipkg.conf
# ipkg update
# ipkg install mt-daapd
# ipkg install mss-libhelper
# ipkg install mss-ld-so

I am able to execute the first two commands successfully. I have double checked the ipkg.conf and they appear.

The issue arises when I perform the ipkg update command, I am receiving the following message.

# ipkg: not found

Does anyone know what is causing this? Thanks

I think perhaps it doesn’t have the unslung system. If you can’t find a version of unslung for the WD, then you might be okay to just untar the ipkg (rename it to .tar.gz and extract the files with winzip or some other archiver), and copying the files to the places they exist on the drive.

You’ll need to ignore the CONTROL directory, as that has presetup scripts, but the actual binary files should be in the opt directory. Just put them in the same place and run it with /opt/sbin/mt-daapd -c /opt/etc/mt-daapd/mt-daapd.conf (if that’s where the config file is — I think it is), and see where that gets you.

— Ron

[scousethemoose]

Hi Ron

Thank-you for you advice. I have done as you suggested, I downloaded
mt-daapd_svn-1586-1_mipsel.ipk and followed your instructions to extract the opt directory files.

The directory structure of my WD is as follows

/shares/Main/__opt/

Which has a listing of:

> bin
> etc
> lib
> opt

I placed the files in the data tar into the opt directory and ran

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

This gave me the following /opt/sbin/mt-daapd: not found.

I decided to move these files outside the opt directory up a level to __opt, I had better results with this.

This gave me the following /opt/sbin/mt-daapd: cannot execute.

Are there any additional changes I may have to make to get this to work?

Thanks

[sonichouse]

Sounds like you need to mark the mt-daapd binary as executable.

try the following

chmod 755 mt-daapd

or

chmod +x mt-daapd

[scousethemoose]

Thanks sonichouse

I tried as you suggested and was able to get further. Unfortunately I’ve hit another brick wall.

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

When I execute the above command the following occurs.

/opt/sbin/mt-daapd: error while loading shared libraries: cannot open open shared object file: cannot load shared object file: No such file or directory.

Any thoughts?

[rpedde]

@scousethemoose wrote:

Thanks sonichouse

I tried as you suggested and was able to get further. Unfortunately I’ve hit another brick wall.

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

When I execute the above command the following occurs.

/opt/sbin/mt-daapd: error while loading shared libraries: cannot open open shared object file: cannot load shared object file: No such file or directory.

Any thoughts?

You are probably missing the libraries it needs. There will be a bunch of them, and I’m not sure how to get them all without unslung.

Ideally, someone would build an unslung bootstrap for the netcenter.

[scousethemoose]

Hi Ron

Thanks again for your input.

Is the creation of an unslung bootstrap something a novice like myself could do provided I could find a rough enough guide or guides to follow.

I don’t mind investing the time to get it done or having to learn new things; or will I have to resign myself to the fact that I’ll have to wait for someone with better experience to do one for the netcenter.

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