Information Looking to test drive, need some best practice advice from experienced users
#1
Short story: Long time user of another product, with which a growing dissatisfaction and the latest experience has me looking for new, and immediate, solution.

Will be doing a clean VM on a DL380p G8 (2x E5-2640 v2) with ESXi 7.0.3-20036589 (8 vCPU limit) with functional testing over the next week or so.
Main usage is on LAN via an old Tab S3 (SM-T827V R0.2, Android 9), with occasional iOS tablet and local browser.
Would be nice to get old Roku2/3 usable again (other product 'outgrew' them) but is not a deal breaker.

What I am looking for here is experienced opinions and suggestions for is:
  1. best VM client OS to host Kodi server
    • unless there are viable assistant apps that have to run with Kodi, this VM will only be for Kodi
    • smooth performance for 2-4 concurrent streams/transcodes is a must.
  2. Kodi BP tips and bolo's that frequently get overlooked or underutilized
    • I did notice in passing a mention of utilizing MySQL for Kodi's DB
      • how stable is this vs using the 'default'
      • is a 'default' DB easily migrated to MySQL or would a new instance need to be created?
      • can it be shared/maintained between instances if I had to redo (or run a 2nd) 'server' VM?
I apologize if any of this is referenced elsewhere, but I am rather swamped at the moment and do not have as much time or grey matter to dedicate to leisure research as I would like and would ask your indulgence to provide links to these references for perusal.

Otherwise, thank you for your time, and I look forward to reviewing your responses.
Reply
#2
(2022-09-02, 06:29)Caveat Wrote: best VM client OS to host Kodi server
Kodi is not a server. It is a standalone media centre intended to be installed on each device that you intend to use.
My Signature
Links to : Official:Forum rules (wiki) | Official:Forum rules/Banned add-ons (wiki) | Debug Log (wiki)
Links to : HOW-TO:Create Music Library (wiki) | HOW-TO:Create_Video_Library (wiki)  ||  Artwork (wiki) | Basic controls (wiki) | Import-export library (wiki) | Movie sets (wiki) | Movie universe (wiki) | NFO files (wiki) | Quick start guide (wiki)
Reply
#3
Apologies. Apparently I was misinformed to the functionality that led me here. Please remove this thread.
Reply
#4
(2022-09-02, 06:29)Caveat Wrote: best VM client OS to host Kodi server
I think you mean a file server. Anything with proper harddisks/ssds and a gigabit connection with should be fine.
LibreELEC (a small Linux basis for Kodi) does offer a SMB server, but I'm not sure you wanna go that way.

(2022-09-02, 06:29)Caveat Wrote: smooth performance for 2-4 concurrent streams/transcodes is a must.
Kodi does not transcode, and it is not a server application. You'll need something like Plex server for that.

(2022-09-02, 06:29)Caveat Wrote: I did notice in passing a mention of utilizing MySQL for Kodi's DB. how stable is this vs using the 'default'
It typically depends on your hardware. If there are no DIMM memory issues, a computer is usually not the problem. The OS may give you some hiccups, in the past I had issues using Windows 7 with some of my MySQL setups. When I changed to Ubuntu Linux, things have been rock solid for 11 years now. The default local SQLite database is for a single user only. A MySQL/MariaDB server can have connects from lots of Kodi devices. The limit comes from the MySQL/MariaDB settings.

(2022-09-02, 06:29)Caveat Wrote: is a 'default' DB easily migrated to MySQL or would a new instance need to be created?
There may be commercial tools to do a direct SQLite-to-MySQL migration, Kodi has no internal tools for that. The detour for that is to export your video (and/or music) library and create .nfo files that also include watched status and resume points. All that metadata can be imported once the MySQL/MariaDB server is up and running.

(2022-09-02, 06:29)Caveat Wrote: can it be shared/maintained between instances if I had to redo (or run a 2nd) 'server' VM?
A database server is a standalone thing. It can hold multiple databases. As long as you can connect to it, it doesn't matter where it is from. Maintaining a database server (backups, edits, etc) is a whole different aspect altogether.
Reply
#5
(2022-09-02, 06:29)Caveat Wrote: Short story: Long time user of another product, with which a growing dissatisfaction and the latest experience has me looking for new, and immediate, solution.

Will be doing a clean VM on a DL380p G8 (2x E5-2640 v2) with ESXi 7.0.3-20036589 (8 vCPU limit) with functional testing over the next week or so.
Main usage is on LAN via an old Tab S3 (SM-T827V R0.2, Android 9), with occasional iOS tablet and local browser.
Would be nice to get old Roku2/3 usable again (other product 'outgrew' them) but is not a deal breaker.

What I am looking for here is experienced opinions and suggestions for is:
  1. best VM client OS to host Kodi server
    • unless there are viable assistant apps that have to run with Kodi, this VM will only be for Kodi

    • smooth performance for 2-4 concurrent streams/transcodes is a must.

  2. Kodi BP tips and bolo's that frequently get overlooked or underutilized
    • I did notice in passing a mention of utilizing MySQL for Kodi's DB
      • how stable is this vs using the 'default'

      • is a 'default' DB easily migrated to MySQL or would a new instance need to be created?

      • can it be shared/maintained between instances if I had to redo (or run a 2nd) 'server' VM?

I apologize if any of this is referenced elsewhere, but I am rather swamped at the moment and do not have as much time or grey matter to dedicate to leisure research as I would like and would ask your indulgence to provide links to these references for perusal.

Otherwise, thank you for your time, and I look forward to reviewing your responses.

Here's a solution which might work for you and is tightly integrated with Kodi.  The server can run on a VM, if you'd like, albeit transcoding performance would be impacted.  Here's my setup where you can see that I have run many concurrent streams at a time with no issues (not transcoding them but pretranscoding is an option or transcoding 1-2 streams live).    Here's a Wiki link for How it works and some FAQs.  I maintain the Wiki and the Mezzmo Kodi addon so I am happy to answer questions and assist.  The nice thing, to your question, is that you can test drive it without any major changes to your current Kodi setup.   The whole database sharing across Kodi clients is automatic.  No fiddling required.  In fact you may never need to touch your Kodi database directly again and it can directly import your current NFO files.  Native Android and Roku clients are available along with a web interface.



Thanks,

Jeff
Running with the Mezzmo Kodi addon.  The easier way to share your media with multiple Kodi clients.
Service.autostop , CBC Sports, Kodi Selective Cleaner and Mezzmo Kodi addon author.
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Looking to test drive, need some best practice advice from experienced users0