Installing Firefly Media Server

The first physical stage of building a home entertainment network is to install Firefly - it is shockingly easy on an Ubuntu Linux server...

1. Connect to the server using ssh or PuTTY
2. Use apt-get to install the service:
   
   sudo apt-get install mt-daapd
3. Start the service:
   
   sudo /etc/init.d/mt-daapd start
4. Make sure that the service starts when the server boots:
   
   sudo update-rc.d mt-daapd defaults
5. Create a user to own your media files:
   
   sudo adduser media
6. Move your local media files and transfer their ownership:
   
   

   for EXTN in mp3 m4a m4p ogg flac mpc do sudo mv *.$EXTN /home/media/music done sudo chown media:media /home/media/music/*

7. Point a browser to port 3689 on the server and update the Configuration page so that the files in the media user's home directory are served.
   
   
   I found that setting the Scan Type to Normal and the interval to 120 (2 minutes) helped pick up the songs on the Samba share (more about them later)
8. Tell Firefly to perform a full scan.
   
   
9. Tell your radio to look for a server - on the Soundbridge, this just involves choosing "Library" from the menu.
10. Make a nice cup of tea and enjoy the music.
    
    
    (coffee is also acceptable)
    

...or at least that should be it - but if you want to serve music from a cheap NAS drive, it may get a little harder.

Under /home/media/music I have created two directories - radio and share. All my locally held podcasts are in radio.

ls -l /home/media/music total 8 drwxr-xr-x 2 media media 4096 2010-09-04 00:44 radio drwxr-xr-x 2 media media 4096 2010-09-04 00:44 share

To make sure that the NAS is mounted automatically, edit the /etc/fstab file to include the drive (note that this is one line):
//192.168.1.252/dreambox/Music /home/media/music/share cifs nounix,iocharset=utf8,uid=media,gid=media,file_mode=0644,dir_mode=0755,guest 0 0


Here we hit a problem - upon performing a scan, the local files are the only ones discovered.

If we try to update the config via the Configuration web page, the message Error: 500 general:mp3_dir is displayed, and the change won't stick.

The Solution

In order to get Firefly to see the drive, it needs to be added manually to the configuration file whilst the server is not running.

I've noticed on several occasions that the service is still running after stopping it via the web page, so the easiest way of stopping the server is to kill its process:

1. Find the process:
   
   

   ps -ef | grep daap mt-daapd 7230 1 0 14:06 pts/0 00:01:04 /usr/sbin/mt-daapd ed 12072 6292 0 20:07 pts/0 00:00:00 grep daap

2. Kill it:
   
   

   sudo kill -9 7230

3. Check that it is no longer running:
   
   

   ps -ef | grep daap ed 12075 6292 0 20:07 pts/0 00:00:00 grep daap

Now that the process has been stopped, edit the /etc/mt-daapd.conf file after making a backup:

sudo cp /etc/mt-daapd.conf /etc/mt-daapd.conf.old sudo vi /etc/mt-daapd.conf

Useful vi commands:

Key	Command	Example
/	Search	/mp3_dir
A	Append at end of line	A,/sharedirectory
x	Delete character
dd	Delete line	Useful if you hit the arrow keys whilst appending
J	Join lines
Esc	Finish editing
:wq	Write file and quit
:q!	Quit without writing file

The mp3_dir key holds a comma separated list of directories to search for audio files, so the offending share may be added as an extra directory:

mp3_dir = /home/media/music,/home/media/music/share

Write the file and quit (using the command :wq), then restart the service:

sudo /etc/init.d/mt-daapd start Starting mt-daapd: mt-daapd.

Bingo! Where's that cup of tea ?

Building a home entertainment network:

1. Designing a Network with Linux
2. Installing Firefly Media Server
3. Turning a PC into a Wireless Access Point pt I
4. Turning a PC into a Wireless Access Point pt II
5. Serving Video on Demand to a Dreambox