Start MP from Network - Tutorial/HowTo (1 Viewer)

[BennieBoy]

Why:
Why not
A better reason is the way I use MP.
I boot my computer from a compact flash card and wanted it to have my installation as light as possible.

How:
The most common way is to start Media Portal from a network share.
The advantages are:

• Quite easy to configure
• Easy to use
• Just easy to setup

The disadvantages are:

• Network not always ready when starting up
• same problem as previous ;-)
• You have to fiddle around to get security working (.NET applications will not start from a network drive by default)
• etc

A less Common way is to use an iSCSI target.
This sounds expensive and you think you probably need a lot of hardware to do so, but the truth is, it is for free and you do not need extra hardware.
The advantages are:

• iSCSI mounts a real drive onto your computer (at least, all software thinks it's a real drive)
• This drive is available, the moment windows starts
• No .NET security issues

The disadvantages are:

• A bit more complicated to setup
• ???

The way to start MP from a network share is described in the https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mediaportal-1-talk-45/media-portal-frontend-compact-flash-tutorial-howto-38610/

This Howto will describe the iSCSI target.

LETS START
On The Server:
Download the Sanfly iSCSI target software.
Or nicely register yourself on the emBoot Sanfly download page:

• Install it on your XP/Windows2003/2008 Server
• Startup Sanfly
• Create a iSCSI Target by right clicking on the sanfly icon in the left pane
• Only define the name of your iSCSI target (press next)
• Create a new Disk file (press next)
• define the size of the iSCSI target disk (1Gbyte will do fine) and select the place where you want the iSCSI target to be saved.

On the Client:

• Download the iSCSI initiator from Microsoft (it's free and it works) (Always look if there is a newer version)
• Install it onto your Client
• Start up the iSCSI initiator
• Add a target portal and enter the IP address of your Server
• Go to the tab Targets, and you will see your created target on the sanfly iSCSI target
• Press Logon, and select the checkbox: Automatically restore this connection when windows starts
• Press OK
• Now right click on "My Computer" and select Manage
• Select Disk Management
• Select the newly created disk and format it
• Afterwards, you will find a new disk when you open "My Computer"
• Install MP onto this newly created drive and voila, you will have a Media Portal, starting from the network.

Have Fun and much success,
Ben

 

[manul]

Share installation

By using this approach is it possible to share the same installation between several clients? I have three MP clients at my home and are trying to keep the same setup, would it be possible to share the same network disk for all three?

 

[BennieBoy]

Manul,

With the free version of SanFly, you can not connect to the same iSCSI target twice.
With the payed version, this shouldn;t be a problem, But that will be a bit expensive,

I do not know if there is any free iSCSI target which allows you to connect several times to the same target Disk.
If you find one (Windows or Linux), please let us know.

Greetz,
Ben

 

[BennieBoy]

I started to use Starwind iSCSI Target and you can have multiple clients using the same Target.
Be aware that writing to this same Target corrupts that Target, so configure with one Client connected and then reconfigure to be read only.

Greetz,
Ben

 

[catch22]

Keyboard disabled

Hi
I installed MP into the target and then made it readonly from another machine I thne initiated that target and than the configuration program. Everything is generally good except I cannot use the keybaord to navigate and my MCE remote doen't work. Becuase the install did not run on that machine are there some files not copied or do some files needs to be registered? Any ideas what is going on.

Cheers guys

 

[BennieBoy]

Just install MP on the second machine to a local path and delete this path afterwards.
It will install all files needed locally (like the MPeg decoders, etc).