MySQL Database: Multiple XBMC HTPC's with 1 Shared Library

twotone8 · 2010-11-19 23:46

would it make more sense to run xbmc in portable mode from a dropbox folder while keeping your media in the same mapped network drive on all computers?

castortray · 2010-12-17 23:27

Hi,
I wrote a short instruction How to configure XBMC with MySQL step by step.
xbmc_mysql
I use xbmc on 4 pc, and I love this synchronization.

Now I need to think how to automatically create backup of database once a week and save last three backups.

Any help is appreciated Smile

webmosher · 2010-12-20 20:57

castortray Wrote:Hi,
I wrote a short instruction How to configure XBMC with MySQL step by step.
xbmc_mysql
I use xbmc on 4 pc, and I love this synchronization.

Now I need to think how to automatically create backup of database once a week and save last three backups.

Any help is appreciated

I've used this reliably for quite some time. Generally easy to setup if you are familiar with modifying scripts:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/

Throw a in a cron entry for it and you are all set.

Enjoy.

steve1977 · 2010-12-28 20:41

craigd Wrote:Disadvantages:
 Images do not get stored in database
 Some addons do not support MySQL databases

quick question. Given all my posters are stored in the movie folder, does this impact me? Also, which are the major non-supported add ons. I recall the lack of add-on support prevented me before, but not sure whether still reel ant.

Thanks!

czfj5r · 2010-12-29 10:45

castortray Wrote:Hi,
I wrote a short instruction How to configure XBMC with MySQL step by step.
xbmc_mysql
I use xbmc on 4 pc, and I love this synchronization.

Now I need to think how to automatically create backup of database once a week and save last three backups.

Any help is appreciated

Hi,

I have used this little trick to do backup of the database. Perhaps it can help. Windows related though...

1. Open Notepad
2. Add the following to the file:

"C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1\bin\mysqldump.exe" --user=xbmc --password=xbmc --add-drop-table --all-databases --result-file=C:\Temp\backup-%DATE%.sql --dump-date

3. Save the file with a .cmd at the end, as example "MySQLBackup.cmd"

4. Go to control panel / schedule task / add new task

5. When asked for the program to run, browse to your newly created file and choose it. Then continue the wizard and choose the options you want (daily, weekly, ...)

Done.

In the commandtext above you need to be aware of the following:
- adjust the path to the mysqldump.exe if needed
- Insert your user and password (I used xbmc as example above)
- I have a %DATE% in the filename above, please be aware that if you use "/" as date seperator it will not work as that is not allowed in teh filename so change your regional settings to use "-" as date seperator
- after the --result-file= you can add the place you want the backup to be put (as example onto another share, usb-stick or...)

I also saw you wanted to remove things automatically after some time. I found the following commandline item you can try to add to the file. I have NOT tested it but feel free Smile

forfiles /p C:\Temp\ /m backup-*.* /d -7 /c "cmd /c del @path"

This command should remove files older then 7 days so just change the 7 to whatever you need. As said, not tested yet...

Hope it helps. You also do not have to add any other program as mysqldump comes with the MySQL installation

castortray · 2010-12-30 01:01

czfj5r Wrote:Hi,

I have used this little trick to do backup of the database. Perhaps it can help. Windows related though...

1. Open Notepad
2. Add the following to the file:

"C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1\bin\mysqldump.exe" --user=xbmc --password=xbmc --add-drop-table --all-databases --result-file=C:\Temp\backup-%DATE%.sql --dump-date

3. Save the file with a .cmd at the end, as example "MySQLBackup.cmd"

4. Go to control panel / schedule task / add new task

5. When asked for the program to run, browse to your newly created file and choose it. Then continue the wizard and choose the options you want (daily, weekly, ...)

Done.

In the commandtext above you need to be aware of the following:
- adjust the path to the mysqldump.exe if needed
- Insert your user and password (I used xbmc as example above)
- I have a %DATE% in the filename above, please be aware that if you use "/" as date seperator it will not work as that is not allowed in teh filename so change your regional settings to use "-" as date seperator
- after the --result-file= you can add the place you want the backup to be put (as example onto another share, usb-stick or...)

I also saw you wanted to remove things automatically after some time. I found the following commandline item you can try to add to the file. I have NOT tested it but feel free

forfiles /p C:\Temp\ /m backup-*.* /d -7 /c "cmd /c del @path"

This command should remove files older then 7 days so just change the 7 to whatever you need. As said, not tested yet...

Hope it helps. You also do not have to add any other program as mysqldump comes with the MySQL installation

This is exactly what i was looking for, Thank You Smile

bionic1234 · 2011-01-01 13:42

craigd Wrote:Disadvantages:
 Profiles not supported so each user will require unique databases if profiles used

Any tips for how to setup profiles with their own unique database?

Bikeman · 2011-01-02 00:07

Dear all,

I'm quite new to XBMC and actually stumbled upon it looking for a decent media library, not really a media center. Looking at the demo videos I was quite impressed, and decided to give it a chance, also as a media center.

The main target remained to have a centralized media library, however. Centralized storage of all data is important to me. I have a server running in the house, including a MySQL-server. I also use this server as a file storage. So this thread was really very helpful to get things up and running. Thanks for this! Smile

There were still some quircks, however. The centralized thumbnail and fanart storage appears not to be really straightforward yet, as they are stored in the userdata-folder by default, and this appears not to be customizable. Hard symlinks might be a beautiful solution for this, but in Windows Vista/7 they don't work with network shares ... I may have found a workaround for this issue, however! Big Grin

When I was looking at the wiki-page about profiles, I noticed this:

Code:

...

<profile>

        <name>spiff</name>

        <directory>q:\userdata</directory>

        <!--allows to move the userdata dir-->

...

Interesting, as the thumbnails and other files reside under the userdata folder. The question remained: does this work with network shares?

Well, it does! Below I'll describe what I've realized.

1) Video and Music Databases
As described in this and other threads, I added a user to my existing MySQL, created 2 databases and granted the new user full rights to these databases. I added the advancedsettings.xml file to the userdata-folder on my local PC.

2) File shares
To increase security (passwords further on are stored in clear text...) I created a new user group on my Windows XP Pro SP3 server. I created a new user also, that is only member of the new user group. I have a user "XBMC" being member of "FileShare Only" group. Creating the group makes sure that user XBMC can only be used for SMB file access, not for logging on to the server.
Then I created a few new shares. The first set was for my media files. I gave the user "XBMC" read-only access to these shares. The last share I created was an "XBMCData" share. I gave "XBMC" and the Administrators-group full access to this share.
As a last step I copied all files from the local userdata-folder to this new share on my server.

3) Profiles.xml
In the third step I modified the profiles.xml-file that XBMC had created in the userdata-folder on my local PC (not the system folder as is indicated on the wiki!). I modified the default profile to this:

Code:

<profiles>

    <lastloaded>0</lastloaded>

    <useloginscreen>false</useloginscreen>

    <profile>

        <name>Master user</name>

        <directory pathversion="1">\\server\XBMCData</directory>

        ...

I also tried the "smb://"-style syntax, so I could select the user used to connect to the share, but this does not work.

4) Sources
As described in this and other threads, I created the sources in XBMC. They all use the "smb://"-style syntax (as they are located on the server).

Using this configuration I am able to use XBMC with a minimum of data stored locally. Some finetuning and testing might be needed, especially testing. Preliminary conclusion seems that it's slightly slower, but usable.

If anything comes up, I'll post it here. But I felt that I should share this with you all.

Any comments or suggestions more than welcome!

Bikeman · 2011-01-02 00:40

Ok, meanwhile for one reason or another things are not working anymore. I restarted XBMC. Then, when I went to the video library XBMC told me that "This file is not present anymore. Do you want to delete it from the library?". I said 'yes'. I could do this a few times.

Next time I went to "Videos", it didn't ask me anything anymore. XBMC just hangs, after showing "Working..." for a few seconds ...

This is what the logfile says when I enable debug logging:

Code:

...

31:04 T:6968 M:1537687552   DEBUG: ------ Window Init (MyVideo.xml) ------

31:04 T:6968 M:1537687552    INFO: Loading skin file: MyVideo.xml

31:04 T:6968 M:1536937984   DEBUG: CGUIMediaWindow::GetDirectory ()

31:04 T:6968 M:1536929792   DEBUG:   ParentPath = []

31:04 T:2808 M:1536757760   DEBUG: thread start, auto delete: 0

31:04 T:2808 M:1533620224   DEBUG: Thread 2808 terminating

31:09 T:6968 M:1555927040   DEBUG: CGUIMediaWindow::GetDirectory (smb://XBMC:***@server/Movies/)

31:09 T:6968 M:1555927040   DEBUG:   ParentPath = []

31:09 T:6680 M:1555750912   DEBUG: Trying to connect to \\server\Movies with username(XBMC) and password(XXXX)

31:09 T:6680 M:1555701760   ERROR: CThread::staticThread - Unhandled exception caught in thread process, attemping cleanup in OnExit

31:09 T:6680 M:1555701760   DEBUG: Thread 6680 terminating (autodelete)

31:09 T:6968 M:1555828736   DEBUG: ------ Window Init (DialogBusy.xml) ------

31:09 T:6968 M:1555828736    INFO: Loading skin file: DialogBusy.xml

After adding this to the log file, XBMC hangs ("Not Responding"). I kill the process in the Vista Task Manager, after which one last message is added to the log:

Code:

23:31:34 T:2016 M:1562222592   DEBUG: Thread 2016 terminating (autodelete)

I'll try to fix this tomorrow or the day after, but for now: Sorry for posting the above (slightly euphoric) post without more thorough testing! Blush

czfj5r · 2011-01-02 01:17

Bikeman,

Nice description above and I hope you get it working. Would be nice to keep it in the advanced settings file if possible.

Just a note though - I use Windows 7 and Symlinks work great there. In my understanding it should also work in Vista. I saw you mentioned that it did now work in Vista/7? Or did I get it wrong.

Anyway.. symlinks work but they have to be created from the command line (cmd.exe)

Again, I hope you get it all fixed through the alternative route you work on Smile

Here is the syntax I used:
"mklink /d Thumbnails \\server\share"

twotone8 Senior Member Posts: 130 Joined: Apr 2010 Reputation: 0	2010-11-19 23:46 Post: #11 would it make more sense to run xbmc in portable mode from a dropbox folder while keeping your media in the same mapped network drive on all computers? (This post was last modified: 2010-11-19 23:50 by twotone8.)
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castortray Fan Posts: 503 Joined: May 2009 Reputation: 0	2010-12-17 23:27 Post: #12 Hi, I wrote a short instruction How to configure XBMC with MySQL step by step. xbmc_mysql I use xbmc on 4 pc, and I love this synchronization. Now I need to think how to automatically create backup of database once a week and save last three backups. Any help is appreciated
	find quote

bionic1234 Senior Member Posts: 206 Joined: Oct 2006 Reputation: 0	2011-01-01 13:42 Post: #17 craigd Wrote:Disadvantages:  Profiles not supported so each user will require unique databases if profiles used Any tips for how to setup profiles with their own unique database?
	find quote