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+-- Forum: Development (/forumdisplay.php?fid=32)
+--- Forum: Feature Suggestions (/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Thread: XBMC "Server" - centralized XBMC management for multiple XBMC devices/platforms? (/showthread.php?tid=37315)
- zosky - 2009-06-24 00:24
support for 1 LAN library would be great.
until then you could do something like this...
- move ~/.xbmc to /some/mounted/remote/path/
- link /remote/path/.xbmc to ~/
- mount external share at boot
but if both try writing at the same time,
i think it would b0rk ?
i'd like to setup a 2nd box soon
is there a better way to do this ?
- Pete_London - 2009-06-24 11:46
I spent Monday trying this.... I shared my ~/.xbmc directory over SMB then tried the following on an identical (Acer Revo) machine after mounting the remote share as /media/xbmc:
1. rename ~/.xbmc and create a symbolic link to the mount
2. as above for userdata, skin, pretty much all the folders.
At best, XBMC wouldn't start, getting to the splash page and then trying to restart. At worst, it wouldn't even do that.
Anybody else got any iseas to make this work? I REALLY want this to work...
Pete
- dbldown768 - 2009-06-24 15:44
just a suggestion but never tried it, what about something like dropbox.
- Maxim - 2009-06-24 16:13
It's been discussed several times over. Check on trac to see if anyone has opened a ticket for it, otherwise there won't be any chance for any support for it at all. Most cases involve Windows some of them involve Linux.
- Gamester17 - 2009-06-24 16:44
http://forum.xbmc.org/tags.php?tag=synchronize
Please always search before posting in the future
Less the implementation, more the method: HTTP/XML - ajmas - 2009-07-11 17:58
I came across this thread because I am interested in having a media server that hosts the whole library. In fact I was thinking that it would be interesting to have xbmc run in a 'thin client' mode, where all the catalogues, except for certain specific stuff (optical media), are hosted on the server. In many way I think it matters less how the implementation is done, than how the communication is done (protocol, formats, etc).
Plugins would be handled by the server for the most part, but it should not exclude client side plugins.
The way I see this working is that any add/update command would simply call the server and update it centrally, though I can imagine the case of a 'read-only' state. The server would also have a notion of user, to support the multi-user mode in xbmc. The server could also become a proxy for anything that doesn't handle networking by nature.
What I am thinking as the data format and protocol is simply HTTP and XML. The advantage being that you have a larger choice of platforms for implementation and it could provide different solutions to choose from. Possible implementations include Apache/PHP, Apache/Python, Tomcat/Java, etc. We can decide which implementation ends up being the better one once we have had a little competition
The only mandate I would put on the implementation is that it should be able to run on any platform where xbmc runs, so IIS/ASP or .net should be discouraged IMHO.If this is an approach that is appealing, then the next task is simply to come up with an XML format that is suitable for each type of node. As to file encoding it would have to be UTF-8, simply so we don't end up in charset-hell, and anyhow all XML parsers should support it natively.
The node types I can think of are:
- modules node (describes a module)
- list node (a list of items)
- media node (the media we are interested in)
I would like to keep the number of node types down to a minimum, so that it reduces the implementation work load and to encourage people to reuse what is there.
All entries would support descriptive elements such as:
- media type
- description
- title
- preview image
- url
IMHO, while there should be a base list of elements, we should not exclude the possibility of adding extensions as new needs arise.
It may make sense to have the localisation of some of this content on the server.
The added benefit of using HTTP/XML is that with xslt you can actually render everything as HTML in a web browser.
Edit: I realise this approach may allow anyone to build an HTPC front-end to the media server, but it many ways that is a good thing. It gives a little competition and encourages people to focus on the developing elements where their strengths lie.
Distributed configuration? - hopdog - 2010-01-24 19:17
I have several xbmc setups around the house (linux kitchen pc, living room apple tv, bedroom xbox, and several laptop setups) and it would be nice to have all of them have the same setup/configuration (drive mappings, skin configuration, etc.) which is saved on a remote server.
I'm not sure if this has already been mentioned or even implemented.
Running XBMC on a server for everyone? - schellax - 2010-01-26 19:19
Hey! I don't know much about computers... so please explain things step by step and in detail!! (thanks)
I have windows server 2008 on a computer. I store my media there and can use XBMC from it perfectly. I've already learned about the export library feature so NFO files and fan art is saved next to my files, and it makes it easier to rescan and for others to rescan. Is there an easy way to transfer all my settings (im guess from userdata - in application data of windows XP) to other computers? For example, is there an easy way to transfer my XBMC settings - such as weather location, which options show up on main menu, how i view my media, where my sources are etc....
maybe portable?? i didnt quite understand how to do portable.. i read wiki userguide for XBMC and it said something about "-p"
do i just copy the userdata folder from application data to someone elses computer? please help, thanks!
THANKS again
- prae5 - 2010-01-26 19:25
Just copying the userdata folder should work, assuming the data sources are the same across all computers.
- bradvido88 - 2010-03-19 17:00
For the mysql backend solution that firnsy implemented, outlined here: http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/8169, what information is stored in the database?
I'm specifically interested in fanart/thumbnails. Are those stored in the database, or still stored locally? If locally, does this mean that each client still needs to do their own scraping in order to get the images?