How to Install MiniDLNA on FreeNAS 9.3 (Prior to Plugin)

[Ziggy]

Yes, running a vm in freenas should be an interesting experiment. I'm looking forward to that myself. Ubuntu's good, but I also like Mint. You need time to play around with the many (many!) versions of Linux to find one you really like, but both those are good enough to start with. Not holding my breath for 10's arrival, given the delays to date. It'll happen when it happens. Thanks for your input. Your assistance is appreciated.

 

[Dennis22]

Hi, I´m using MiniDLNA and it works very good, but it doesn´t recognize ISO files. Is there a solution for my problem?

Best regards
D. Wolf

 

[joeschmuck]

but it doesn´t recognize ISO files

Not that I am aware of unless you find a solution to mount the ISO image and then make that mount available to MiniDLNA, but even then MiniDLNA would see a lot of VOB files or similar and that would make playback frustrating.

 

[Yatti420]

Made some more progress and spruced up my directories a bit and tried again using pkg install.. Was a pkg always available (confused about first post)? Can't remember if I was doing a port install before.. My jail templates are messed up so can be a big issue.. Either way it scanned and played something so far.. Glad it's still being developed.. I bet it's far faster then plex even with verbose logging :)

 

[solarisguy]

Is it a piece of good news that 9.3.2 is on the horizon?

 

[Yatti420]

Sure is bumps BSD to 10x I believe but leaves the GUI alone.. Hence it's still being called 9.3.2 but I believe it is still 10 under the hood.. Then eventually 10 and a new GUI with new features will come out..


For MiniDNLA should I be adding a sysctl to increase the amount of files serviceable? I think saw this being done previously?

 

[Yatti420]

You have likely exceeded the kqueue limit with the number of files you are trying to service. How many files are trying to share with MiniDLNA? You can try this option to see if it works... Edit the conf file to "inotify=no" and restart the jail, see how that works for you.

No way to increase this limit?

 

[joehell]

Hi there,

I installed the miniDLNA pluggin for months now, and everything works fine with my french "Freebox" (French ISP box)
But my problem is my children (5 and 9 years old) are growing, and I don't want them do watch some kind of movies or tv shows stored in the server.

Is there a way to cofigure a PIN or a passcode for some folders, or the entire dlna service ?


Thanks for your advice !

 

[Yatti420]

@joehell for upnp not really.. It's least restrictive.. What I would do is password protect your profile on the client.. Create a new one for kids with restrictions to specific shares.. Then also put in restrictions via NAS to stop them looking once they get older.. Apart from DNS blocks etc If you really don't want them watching stuff as they get older don't use UPNP.. It is NOT secure nor designed to be imho..

 

[Yatti420]

All my UPNP errors I had to deal with to get back and running.. For something as simple as MiniDNLA is shouldn't be that painful with kqueue.. Obviously still not ready for me yet..

- inotify.c:859: warn: kevent polling failure: Interrupted system call (These occur constantly with kqueue enabled - Status=Working)
- minidlna.c:1222: error: select(all): Bad file descriptor & c:1223: fatal: Failed to select open sockets. EXITING (After Fininshing Scanning Fully - With Kqueue enabled still - Status=Fatal)
- upnpevents.c:304: error: upnp_event_notify_connect: connect(): Connection refused (kqueue enabled - Status=Working)
- upnpsoap.c:123: warn: Returning UPnPError 701: No such object error (pictures still struggling on original xbox) (may be xbox (original - xbmc error))

inotify/kqueue crash on adding new file or when selecting a file after scan completed (Status = Fatal)

Code:

[2016/03/03 02:05:11] inotify.c:535: info: Added watch to /tvshows/C.../Season 2/C..S2E15 .....mp4 [3589]
[2016/03/03 02:05:54] minidlna.c:1278: debug: HTTP connection from 192.168.0.104:50709
[2016/03/03 02:05:54] upnpevents.c:423: fatal: upnpevents_selectfds: file descriptor 3590 too big for select, limit is 1024

So far I had to disable kqueue and it looks like the pkg version is running successfully again!

 

[solarisguy]

Hi there,

I installed the miniDLNA pluggin for months now, and everything works fine with my french "Freebox" (French ISP box)
But my problem is my children (5 and 9 years old) are growing, and I don't want them do watch some kind of movies or tv shows stored in the server.

Is there a way to cofigure a PIN or a passcode for some folders, or the entire dlna service ?


Thanks for your advice !

The only way I see it working is to have two separate instances of DLNA and turn on the one that serves more mature content only when you watch it.

That is have folders, let's say U, 12, 16, 18, 18plus. And have each of them assigned to one of the servers. When children grow, reassign as appropriate.

In my opinion, it is not possible to have it very convenient for you and secure at the same time.

 

[joeschmuck]

No way to increase this limit?

Not that I am aware of. I'm hoping when Bhyve comes out we will be able to run a Linux variant which supports MiniDLNA and that solves the issues.

EDIT: Keep in mind that kqueue was ported to FreeBSD, it's not native support.

 

[joeschmuck]

@joehell I agree with the advice above, I don't know of any way to be restrictive for the DLNA service. Also keep in mind that MiniDLNA, or any DLNA service will transmit the data freely over your entire network and because it's a general standard, your kids could be watching movies on a cell phone, tablet, PC, or any device which accepts video streaming, and kids will find a way to get into things you don't want then to. With that in mind I would recommend as @solarisguy recommends, create two jails and run two DLNA services, one for the children which can be left on all the time and then the second one which you turn on/off as desired. It definitely is not convenient.

I have one last possible option... depending on how large your video library is and your system connectivity is, you could copy all your adult movies ;) to an external USB hard drive and then plug that into your French Freebox if it accepts a USB drive connection. Now you just need to put the hard drive away.

 

[ism4il]

i installed MiniDLNA but i couldnt start plugin. How can i fix it. or How can i start it.

 

[joeschmuck]

Specifically which step in the procedure failed?

 

[der_vitti]

Hi Mark,
thank you very much for this tutorial.
I was able to implement mindlan successfully on FreeBSD MiniDLNA 10.3-STABLE FreeBSD 10.3-STABLE. In this build the steps

29) Type "cd rc.d"
30) Type "ee minidlna"
31) Scroll down to the line where it says

Code:

command_args="-P $pidfile -u $minidlna_uid -f /usr/local/etc/minidlna.conf"

and add -R to make the line read

Code:

command_args="-R -P $pidfile -u $minidlna_uid -f /usr/local/etc/minidlna.conf"

32) Press ESCape and then Enter key twice to Leave and Save the changes.

are no longer necessary. There is no minidlna in rc.d and it works anyway.

regards
Vitti

 

[joeschmuck]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to verify this on my test system and then I'll update the instructions appropriately.

Cheers

 

[Dj Ziggy]

Hello I am a first time user of Freenas and tried to install your handy plugin, how ever. I cannot install it:
The error gave me this

Code:

[root@freenas ~]# jexec MiniDLNA /bin/csh                                                                                          
root@MiniDLNA:/ # pkg install minidlna                                                                                            
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...                                                                                          
Repository FreeBSD has a wrong packagesite, need to re-create database

What should i do?

After i did pkg install minidlna again it worked

 

[joeschmuck]

After i did pkg install minidlna again it worked

Nothing I guess since it worked.

 

[IceBoosteR]

Hello joeschmuck,
thanks a lot for writing this guide!
I was trying to stream my data with PLEX in my home-nework, which was working- but miniDLNA is the way I want to access my data. Just simple and clever, and not lock out for some files.
I really happy with this guide.
But I was getting an error, when I want to install minidlna in the jail. First of all, with FreeNAS 9.10 in the jail itself a file called "FreeNAS-10.3-Stable" or something like that was downloading. Not sure if this is important, but I was not able to install minidlna with pkg
Error:

Code:

pkg: file:///usr/ports/packages/meta.txz: No such file or directory			
pkg: repository local has no meta file, using default settings				
pkg: file:///usr/ports/packages/digests.txz: No such file or directory		
pkg: Unable to update repository local										
All repositories are up-to-date.

So I just looked into this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/2s5q7f/help_pkg_install_nano/
Maybe this is helping someone.
I need to install gettext first, then everything works fine, like you have documented it.

Code:

pkg install gettext

Hit a few times YES than and voila ;)


But I have another question: Is it possible to add more than one folder, just like one share from FreeNAS "Movies" and "TV Shows"? I think its simple, maybe adding another directory in the conf?
Another question is, is it possible to acess the mediaserver with a password? When I access the built-in DLNA client from my router, I have to put in a username and password.

Thanks a lot.
IceBoosteR