[Ballistic]

Awesome! I can finally roll out XBMC with MySQL database to my friends!
Much appreciated!

[kikinjo]

I will eventually document the setup procedure of my whole setup including proxy/webcache and will include a section on MySQL permissions.

Hi,

Can u in short words please say what are you using for proxy / webcache, and for what protocols ?
I spent lots of time trying to find good solution for local cache for clients since my Mysql DB is on remote server and i also use Music DB. Running 8 clients on windows and main storage / DB on linux server.

Tried squid proxy for windows, but its not good, since https caching is not possible. Any info would be good. Thanx.

[N4TH4N]

Can u in short words please say what are you using for proxy / webcache, and for what protocols ?
I spent lots of time trying to find good solution for local cache for clients since my Mysql DB is on remote server and i also use Music DB. Running 8 clients on windows and main storage / DB on linux server.

Tried squid proxy for windows, but its not good, since https caching is not possible. Any info would be good. Thanx.

Hey,

The proxy is used for caching posters, fanart, etc. Basically anything that needs scraping from the internet.

The reason im using it is because i was previously using local .nfo, .tbn and .jpg files which was causing unnecessary hard drive spin ups on my NAS.
XBMC Forum
Lime-Tech Forum

I always document my server setups so here is a quick exert from my evernote.

Install Squid Proxy Server
sudo apt-get install squid
sudo nano /etc/squid3/squid.conf
Find: http_access deny all
Change: http_access allow all
Find: # cache_dir ufs /var/spool/squid3 100 16 256
Change: cache_dir ufs /var/spool/squid3 5120 16 256
sudo service squid3 restart

Basically i just installed squid, allowed access to all, setup the cache directory to 5GB.

To check how big your cache folder is i use this simple command: sudo du -sh /var/spool/squid3

The following is from the squid manual which outlines cache_dir:

Code:

====  The ufs store type  ====

    "ufs" is the old well-known Squid storage format that has always
    been there.

    Usage:
        cache_dir ufs Directory-Name Mbytes L1 L2 [options]

    'Mbytes' is the amount of disk space (MB) to use under this
    directory.  The default is 100 MB.  Change this to suit your
    configuration.  Do NOT put the size of your disk drive here.
    Instead, if you want Squid to use the entire disk drive,
    subtract 20% and use that value.

    'L1' is the number of first-level subdirectories which
    will be created under the 'Directory'.  The default is 16.

    'L2' is the number of second-level subdirectories which
    will be created under each first-level directory.  The default
    is 256.

This is how i have my XBMC clients setup:


Then if you wait a second and go to system info and it still says connected, you know it works.


I'm not sure if its the absolute best solution but it seems to work.

[N4TH4N]

UPDATE: Now includes a server setup script and new client setup script that can setup 1-5 users. Just leave the names blank for users you don't wish to see on that client.

[N4TH4N]

UPDATE: Now with Music database support

[kikinjo]

Hi N4than,

Thanx for quick reply and provided info. I will try again with squid, but configuration should be much different since all mine DB and files are remote.

Well i think setting squid to cache only http for artwork and thumbnails from internet, and skip all caching for remote video / music files could work.

Any extra settings we could maybe define in advancedsettings.xml for internet / proxy connection ? It would be nice to have exclude option / list if proxy is enabled to specify some destinations we dont want xbmc to go thru proxy, but that just my wishes

[N4TH4N]

Thanx for quick reply and provided info. I will try again with squid, but configuration should be much different since all mine DB and files are remote.

What protocol are you using to add your sources.

[N4TH4N]

UPDATE: Now with Linux support.

[Steini]

Great tutorial

I have been wanting to implement this for my setup since I hate double scans!

I have a split setup: Multiple clients in house and one at my parents place.

Local clients: Samba + mysql
My parents client: Webdav+ sqlite

This setup works but scanning over webdav is irritating

My first step would be to use your guide to make them a mysql db but I wanted to see if you had any ideas of how I map the filenames?

I could use pathsubstitution for samba>webdav conversion which works but I would love to hear your ideas, maybe a fresh perspective on the whole idea

Thanks

[N4TH4N]

Great tutorial

I have been wanting to implement this for my setup since I hate double scans!

I have a split setup: Multiple clients in house and one at my parents place.

Local clients: Samba + mysql
My parents client: Webdav+ sqlite

This setup works but scanning over webdav is irritating

My first step would be to use your guide to make them a mysql db but I wanted to see if you had any ideas of how I map the filenames?

I could use pathsubstitution for samba>webdav conversion which works but I would love to hear your ideas, maybe a fresh perspective on the whole idea

Thanks

Hey,

After putting my thinking cap on. The only thing i could think of is having 2 MySQL servers, one at your place and one at your parents.

It may be possible to clone your MySQL server to your parents with a trigger set to change the path of files.

It would need to adjust 'a78'.'path' from smb://INTERNAL_IP/ to dav://EXTERNAL_IP/

I have not ever used webdav with XBMC, do you know how it stores data in the 'path' table ?

Also what is your upload speed, I'm guessing its quite high to be able to transfer media over webdav.

[Steini]

Since he only has a openelec box I was hoping to skip the mysql server there.

What I will try is to use pathsubstitution since that is only a few lines of xml which I know works.

Then I will try to open the mysql server over the internet (with some security tweaks like only listen to my parents IP addres

The Webdav works fine, but we are both on 50mb/s links which is more than enough

[N4TH4N]

Since he only has a openelec box I was hoping to skip the mysql server there.

What I will try is to use pathsubstitution since that is only a few lines of xml which I know works.

Then I will try to open the mysql server over the internet (with some security tweaks like only listen to my parents IP addres

The Webdav works fine, but we are both on 50mb/s links which is more than enough

It will be interesting to see how the MySQL database holds up over the internet rather then local.

Also pathsubs are probably the easiest solution if using the single MySQL database.

[nickr]

Since he only has a openelec box I was hoping to skip the mysql server there.

What I will try is to use pathsubstitution since that is only a few lines of xml which I know works.

Then I will try to open the mysql server over the internet (with some security tweaks like only listen to my parents IP addres

The Webdav works fine, but we are both on 50mb/s links which is more than enough

You would be far better to use an SSH tunnel or vpn for MySQL. Far more secure.

[kikinjo]

Thanx for quick reply and provided info. I will try again with squid, but configuration should be much different since all mine DB and files are remote.

What protocol are you using to add your sources.

Video files = https, music = ftp. ftps isnt working fro me at all, and sftp works on main scraping xbmc but not on clients...

[N4TH4N]

Video files = https, music = ftp. ftps isnt working fro me at all, and sftp works on main scraping xbmc but not on clients...

So you are trying to cache the actual media. If so you cannot cache https data at all since its encrypted point to point. Its just not possible.

If you can access the media over http rather then https you could set squid to save the data, you would just have to increase the overall cache size and allow for files that large, i think by default squid only saves 4mb files, or something quite small.

You would be better off creating a separate thread about setting up a proxy as you will get some better responses there.