2011-09-17, 04:42
Hey Guys,
First post here so be nice! I have been working for a while on a solution that will sync multiple XBMC machines to one library and I finally found a solution that works just like Folder Redirection of AppData but without the permission errors experienced with the xbmc.old.log bug.
To get started, here is what you need.
A central SMB share on a file server/network location
A domain (not necessary, but useful for GPO)
Knowledge of how Robocopy works.
Correct NTFS permissions on network share.
Here are the steps:
Backup your library first.
Create your network share to store the centralized library.
Create .bat files for each of the following commands.
Example,
XBMC_Startup.bat
robocopy "V:\XBMC_appdata" "C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\XBMC" /MIR /FFT
XBMC_Shutdown.bat
robocopy "C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\XBMC" "V:\XBMC_appdata" /MIR /FFT
The startup script will mirror the local AppData location with the centralized library store.
The shutdown script will mirror the centralized store with the local AppData.
It works like this;
You log in, you grab any data from the network location and store it locally. You mark watched a whole bunch of shows and log off Windows. The updated AppData with the new marked shows will copy back to the server.
Rinse, Repeat. It keeps all my data synced between machine.
There is only one downfall however, both machines cannot be logged in at the same time.
I hope this made sense. I battled with the MySQL solution and Folder Redirects for so long that I finally came up with this solution. It is actually faster then a folder redirect sync on a domain.
First post here so be nice! I have been working for a while on a solution that will sync multiple XBMC machines to one library and I finally found a solution that works just like Folder Redirection of AppData but without the permission errors experienced with the xbmc.old.log bug.
To get started, here is what you need.
A central SMB share on a file server/network location
A domain (not necessary, but useful for GPO)
Knowledge of how Robocopy works.
Correct NTFS permissions on network share.
Here are the steps:
Backup your library first.
Create your network share to store the centralized library.
Create .bat files for each of the following commands.
Example,
XBMC_Startup.bat
robocopy "V:\XBMC_appdata" "C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\XBMC" /MIR /FFT
XBMC_Shutdown.bat
robocopy "C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\XBMC" "V:\XBMC_appdata" /MIR /FFT
The startup script will mirror the local AppData location with the centralized library store.
The shutdown script will mirror the centralized store with the local AppData.
It works like this;
You log in, you grab any data from the network location and store it locally. You mark watched a whole bunch of shows and log off Windows. The updated AppData with the new marked shows will copy back to the server.
Rinse, Repeat. It keeps all my data synced between machine.
There is only one downfall however, both machines cannot be logged in at the same time.
I hope this made sense. I battled with the MySQL solution and Folder Redirects for so long that I finally came up with this solution. It is actually faster then a folder redirect sync on a domain.