Jim Kusznir wrote:
> Hello all:
> 
> I was wondering if it was possible to make mythmusic act as a client for
> an iTunes shared library?
> 
> I have a windoze box with iTunes and its library of music.  As the
> library of music is "managed" by someone else in the family who is
> uncomfortable with linux, moving the itunes collection to linux and
> having it share it is not an acceptable option.
> 
> I found:
> http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Apple_ITunes_Server
> which talks about creating the iTunes share on a linux box, but I want
> to do the opposite, and my googling hasn't turned up any results to this
> end.

It is certainly possible to access music on a Windows box from
mythmusic.  This method worked fine for me when accessing regular .mp3
files on a Windows box.  I don't know anything about iTunes, so perhaps
there are other issues related with the format the music is saved in?
This may not work at all for you.

To access any windows folder under linux, you can use smbfs to mount a
windows file share.  This requires enabling file sharing on Windows,
allowing it through the Windows firewall (if XP SP2), and creating a
file share for the Windows folder.  I'll assume the Windows name for the
PC is "windowsbox" and the share name for the shared music folder is
"itunes".  I will also assume that the username and password for the
windows file share are "winuser" and "winpass".  Substitute as appropriate.

To test if the PC is correctly configured, try the command:
  smbclient -L windowsbox
You should see the shared directory in the list of output services.

>From here on, you'll probably need to be root.

You can test mounting the share with the following command:
  smbmount //windowsbox/itunes /mnt -o username=winuser
If that works, you should be prompted for a password.  After entering
the password if you "ls /mnt" you should see the contents of the windows
folder.  Now unmount it:
  umount /mnt

You need to create a directory where you want the mount point to be on
your mythtv box.  I don't recall what the default location mythmusic
searches for music is, but it's in the settings.  I'll assume it is
/var/myth/music for now.  If you are using some other directory, either
because you changed it or because that is not the correct default,
substitute as appropriate.

If the only music you want to access is on the windows box, you can
mount the windows folder directly on /var/myth/music.  If you have some
other music local on the mythtv box, then create a subdirectory to mount
it on, for example /var/myth/music/windows.

To make the mythtv box mount the windows file share automatically on
boot, add the following line to your /etc/fstab:
  //windowsbox/itunes /var/myth/music/windows smbfs \
  username=winuser,password=winpass  0  2
(remove '\' and combine into one line)

To test it, do
  mount -a
  ls /var/myth/music/windows

If everything has worked so far, then just run the "scan for new music"
option from the settings to update the database.

One important note about this:  if the windows box becomes unavailable
(for example because it is shut down) it takes a long time for
filesystem operations to time out.  This makes mythmusic *very*
unresponsive.






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