[02ebz06]

Hello,
I am trying evaluate Kodi (not overly pleased with Plex) and have problems with the web interface.

First, the environment:
  Debian 10 (Buster) Kernel 4.19 NON-GUI
  8gb ram
  10tb disk
  Java 13.0.2

I installed Kodi with no problems (apt install kodi).
I had to change Apache-Tomcat port (was 8080).
Tried the web interface -->  http://192.168.0.111:8080  and get "Cannot Connect" message.

I'm guessing it is something I need to configure, but everything I see online assumes you have a GUI and run Kodi on the box it was installed on, so the info doesn't help.

If anybody can point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.

TIA

[DarrenHill]

Have you actually got it enabled in Kodi? You need to access the GUI to turn it on perhaps, if you can (I don't recall offhand if it's enabled by default or not).

Go to settings > service settings > control and there you can enable it, plus tell it which port to listen on, whether to require a username/password and which web interface to use.

[02ebz06]

Have you actually got it enabled in Kodi? You need to access the GUI to turn it on perhaps, if you can (I don't recall offhand if it's enabled by default or not).

Go to settings > service settings > control and there you can enable it, plus tell it which port to listen on, whether to require a username/password and which web interface to use.

Thanks for the fast reply, but there is no GUI on the box where Kodi is installed.
It is a Server and do all access to it remotely via ssh.

[DarrenHill]

Go to the userdata (wiki) folder of your install via SSH and find the file guisettings.xml.

Make a backup of it (just in case), and with Kodi not running edit it and look for the lines

Code:

<setting id="services.webserver" default="true">false</setting>
    <setting id="services.webserverpassword" default="true"></setting>
    <setting id="services.webserverport" default="true">8080</setting>
    <setting id="services.webserverssl" default="true">false</setting>
    <setting id="services.webserverusername" default="true">kodi</setting>
    <setting id="services.webskin" default="true">webinterface.default</setting>

Those are the settings for the web interface. I took the above from one of my Windows machines (which doesn't have the web interface enabled, as you can see from the first line) but you can manually change those settings and set things up yourself remotely. The web skin by default is Chorus2, which works fine for most people.

[02ebz06]

Go to the userdata (wiki) folder of your install via SSH and find the file guisettings.xml.

Make a backup of it (just in case), and with Kodi not running edit it and look for the lines

Code:

<setting id="services.webserver" default="true">false</setting>
<setting id="services.webserverpassword" default="true"></setting>
<setting id="services.webserverport" default="true">8080</setting>
<setting id="services.webserverssl" default="true">false</setting>
<setting id="services.webserverusername" default="true">kodi</setting>
<setting id="services.webskin" default="true">webinterface.default</setting>

Those are the settings for the web interface. I took the above from one of my Windows machines (which doesn't have the web interface enabled, as you can see from the first line) but you can manually change those settings and set things up yourself remotely. The web skin by default is Chorus2, which works fine for most people. 

I've seen other references to that file but it doesn't exist.
There is a file in the .kodi/userdata folder -->   advancedsettings.xml, however what is confusing is this is under "my" home directory.
So, when someone on another system puts http://<server_Name>:8080 in there browser, I don't see how it could possibly know to look in my directory tree.
I did find a /usr/share/kodi/userdata folder, but didn't have the advancedsettings.xml or the guisettings.xml files in it.
I copied the advancedsettings.xml there and tried, but no luck.
Maybe I need the complete guisettings.xml file in the folder.

FYI, the advancedsettings.xml has this in it for the web interface:

    <services>
        <esallinterfaces>true</esallinterfaces>
        <webserver>true</webserver>
        <port>8080</port>
        <zeroconf>true</zeroconf>
    </services>

[DarrenHill]

advancedsettings.xml (wiki) doesn't have anything for the web server (at least according to the wiki). Forget that file, it's not relevant to what you're trying to do here.

Your set-up sounds very odd to be honest. I guess the guisettings may not be there if the Kodi has never run (or never run with a GUI)?

The files should be in the [[userdata] sub-folder off the .kodi folder in the home directory of the user that runs Kodi, as you can see from the wiki link in my previous post.

[02ebz06]

As you said "The files should be in the [[userdata] sub-folder off the .kodi folder in the home directory of the user that runs Kodi".
That never gets seen when connecting from from another computer.

So there needs to be some sort of global setting to enable the web access.

Can you post the complete guisettings.xml file and I will try putting it in the /usr/share/kodi/userdata folder?

Thanks

[black_eagle]

Just to add, Kodi does not come supplied with an advancedsettings.xml file at all, so either you have created that or it is supplied by your distribution.  If you didn't create it then the distro install did, which makes me wonder what else they might have changed.  This is pretty much why the team doesn't support anything outside their own supplied installs (ubuntu ppa).

Also, Kodi is a media centre with a '10 foot interface'.  It is not designed to run headless without a GUI.  Although doing so is possible, it is relatively advanced to do so and I doubt it is supported officially on here.

Anyway, to fix your issue, install Kodi locally on something with a monitor attached, configure it how you want it (media paths, webserver etc etc) and then scp the entire ~/.kodi/userdata directory to the server (assuming that the server copy of Kodi is happy to run without a GUI).

[02ebz06]

Mentioning Unsupporded distro triggered my brain.

I was following installation instructions (forget from where) and was given these two commands"
   echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu trusty main" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
   add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

The first one simply added the line to sources.list
The second generated errors, so I removed the file and did the install, hence the unsupported distro.

So here is execution of 2nd command:
add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
 Official Team Kodi stable releases
 More info: https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archive/ubuntu/ppa
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it

gpg: keybox '/tmp/tmpvt9p13r9/pubring.gpg' created
gpg: /tmp/tmpvt9p13r9/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key 6D975C4791E7EE5E: public key "Launchpad PPA for XBMC for Linux" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1
gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found.

Now here are the errors from apt update:

Err:17 http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/ppa/ubuntu focal Release
  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.95.83 80]

E: The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/ppa/ubuntu focal Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.


So, is the command I used (add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa) wrong?

[DarrenHill]

HOW-TO:Install Kodi for Linux (wiki)

It looks right, but you're getting beyond my area of knowledge so I can't be much more help specifically on Linux. Equally I don't have such an install to give you an example guisettings.xml file, and providing one from another OS I think may introduce more problems than it solves.

The latter suggestion by Black Eagle sounds like a sensible route if it's something you can do.

[black_eagle]

So, is the command I used (add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa) wrong?

No the command is right.  But there is no Kodi version for Focal Fossa in the ppa.  There are versions for Xenial, Bionic, Cosmic, Disco and Eoan. If you want it to run on Focal then I guess you will have to build it from source.

[02ebz06]

So, is the command I used (add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa) wrong?

No the command is right.  But there is no Kodi version for Focal Fossa in the ppa.  There are versions for Xenial, Bionic, Cosmic, Disco and Eoan. If you want it to run on Focal then I guess you will have to build it from source. 

I take it those are code names for the versions of Ubuntu.
I'm on Debian 10 code name Buster (Toy Story names), so I'm thinking I have hit the wall.
Could be a lot of work to build from scratch, mismatched/missing libraries, etc.
I'm surprised  there is no repository (supported) for Debian.
I appreciate your time.
Maybe I'll check back in 6 months or so to see if anything changed.
Thanks again to both of you.