Forum.HaveTheKnowHow.com

Hello all

I have been playing around with the idea of running a media server for a while now. I'd flirted with the idea of Linux in the past but always ended up going back to windows because I knew what I was doing there. When I came across Ian's Website it focused my efforts to sort out a proper system rather than a series of patches and work arounds.

I have Ubuntu 10.04 up and running as my host and a "Media Server" guest thanks to KVM. I guess that isn't unusual given where we are, my question is how do people do the actual file serving. I have a separate 1TB drive with my media on it.
In Ian's original guide NFS and Samba where suggested. Are these run from the host? NFS seems to get a bad press for being buggy, and there is a thread on this forum about the network overhead.
Would I be as well to mount the media drive to the guest and run Samba from there?
Nothing seems to be mentioned in the KVM guides on the web which either means, what I'm trying to do is so simple it's skipped over, or more likely I've misunderstood something fundamental.

How is everyone else getting around this and what are the advantages/disadvantages of the solutions you have used.

Thanks

Dunk :o)

Hi there Dunk,

I keep going backwards and forwards between the idea of the host machine being purely the host and it also being the "media server". At the moment I'm using the host as the media server and the "guests" are additional OS's (various windows machines, scratch ubuntu installs and the like).

It's been a while since I used the host machine as the host and having a guest as the "media server". Can't remember off hand what made me abandon the idea. Maybe I got bored or maybe I hit a brick wall. When I get the chance I'll try again and remind myself of why I abandoned the idea. From memory I did hit issues sharing drives between the host and the guest machines using NFS and using samba on the guest but I can't remember whether I overcame them or simply gave up!

I too would be interested in hearing other people's experiences.

Ian.

Hello Guys!

I am currently thinking of ways on how to setup my PC to handle all my requirements and I saw this post. I didn't wat to create a new post for a related question.

So Ian, Did you got a chance to try this setup again to remind you why you abandoned the idea?

Also, when you where on the setup where the guest was your media server, where you using FlexRaid? Where was it running, on the host or guest? How was it?

I am planning to do the same setup but using Windows7 as a host. Then create a VM of Ubuntu and set it up the way you have set up everything, including FlexRaid. The samba or NFS installed in the Guest OS, Ubuntu, will be sharing the files to any PC across the network including the Host OS Windows7.

Althought mine well run on different Host OS, your experience will give me an idea of what problems I could encounter in running the media server and FlexRaid on a VM and sharing everything to the network the same way as if it was running in the hosts itself.

Hi Velle

I can't speak for Ian, but I gave up on the idea of KVM. I'm afraid it was a case of the complication out weighing the benefits. I wanted to run the whole media server as a guest. Unfortunately the tuners that feed Myth where only available to the host, I can't remember if it was USB or PCI that won't pass through. Their was also alot of talk about network overheads when using NFS to pass data between the host and guests. I don't know if it turned out to be the case or not but I was/am to much of a Linux noob to be getting into the complication.
If I find a way to get round this then I would probably look at it again. The advantages are still there, and maybe one day so will my skill.

Dunk

Thanks for sharing. Did you try your luck with VirtualBox? I saw this thread "http://forum.havetheknowhow.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=81". You might want to consider that if it solve some if not all of the problems you encountered. I hope you inform us of the outcome.

Hi Velle,

I'm still using the host as the media server. Not had the chance to try it again from scratch the other way round I'm afraid. I always make a habit of trying new stuff out on a guest OS and not on the host. Once I'm happy then I'd replicate the steps on the host.

I run FlexRAID on the main host rather than on a guest. To me it makes sense to run it this way round but can appreciate your desire to do it the other way round. Are you aware they do a windows version of FlexRAID? Most people on the FlexRAID forums seem to be Windows users, us Ubuntu peeps are in the minority. If you ever need to rebuild the guest then the FlexRAID files will be lost and you'd have to start over. If it's on the main OS then you'd not have that issue.

I couldn't get NFS and samba to play nicely together (kept hitting "file locked" issues). I now run samba on the host and share stuff that way round. All the media resides on drives mounted by the main OS and the guests access them via samba if required.

Ian.