jamh

Ok my update is finally working. Here's the full mount line in /etc/fstab: curlftpfs#mpdserver:/sda_part1/music /mnt/music fuse allow_other,nosuid,_netdev,uid=104,gid=29,umask=022,iocharset=utf8 0 1 Where 104 and 29 are the uid of mpd and the gid of audio. Also I needed to run "mpc update" as the mpd user because of my mount options. So everything works now as it should.

Yes, something weird is going on. I did try leaving the db on /var/lib/mpd. Same result. To be precise, I did a number of different scenarios, what I discovered is that the db does get updated correctly, but vanishes when I restart mpd. I did an orderly shutdown right after updating the db. Didn't help. It seems that mpd recreates the db on a reboot. The entries in /etc/default/voyage-utils look ok. They are supposed to sync /var/lib/mpd. For now I took a backup of my db and just copy it after a restart. No big deal. But I'm puzzled.

Alix+NAS+Router - Imgur Pictures, as promised. The sizes are a bit deceiving. They are smaller than they look. That box on top is the Alix computer which is a mere 6" wide by 5" deep. The enclosure under it contains the boards for the Buffalo router, the NAS and the drives. It is 17" wide by 5" deep. I had to extend it in the back to accommodate the router board.

Hah! My NAS runs NTFS and I was thinking maybe I should have made it ext2

Thanks iago for the info. It's the only thorn right now in an otherwise perfect system. Just to let you know, I looked carefully at the curlftpfs' mount options. I do specify the mpd user's uid and gid. Indeed after a reboot all the files in the ftpfs are owned by mpd and if I su to mpd I can create a dummy file there. But the files are not updated for some reason. you mentioned "after updating the library". Sine I don't have the --create-db flag, I just wanted to confirm that this is done by running "mpc update".

No problem with the ftpfs keeping up. I'm playing 192k flacs right now and here are usage numbers for the router: CPU CPU Model Atheros AR7161 rev 2 (0xaa) CPU Clock680 MHz Load Average 44%0.67, 0.41, 0.24 Memory Total Available 97%126504 kB / 131072 kB Free 9%11968 kB / 126504 kB Used 91%114536 kB / 126504 kB Buffers 45%51116 kB / 114536 kB Cached 39%44956 kB / 114536 kB Active 29%33752 kB / 114536 kB Inactive 49%56476 kB / 114536 kB And for Alix: [ 0.000000] virtual kernel memory layout: [ 0.000000] fixmap : 0xfff16000 - 0xfffff000 ( 932 kB) [ 0.000000] pkmap : 0xff800000 - 0xffc00000 (4096 kB) [ 0.000000] vmalloc : 0xd0800000 - 0xff7fe000 ( 751 MB) [ 0.000000] lowmem : 0xc0000000 - 0xd0000000 ( 256 MB) [ 0.000000] .init : 0xc13d1000 - 0xc1427000 ( 344 kB) [ 0.000000] .data : 0xc12bf0a7 - 0xc13d1000 (1095 kB) [ 0.000000] .text : 0xc1000000 - 0xc12bf0a7 (2812 kB) ... [170760.059191] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0d8c, idProduct=0304 [170760.083732] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0 [170760.105472] usb 1-2: Product: Schiit USB Interface [170760.120179] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: CMEDIA [170760.198137] cannot get ctl value: req = 0x83, wValue = 0x201, wIndex = 0xb00, type = 4 [170760.251450] input: CMEDIA Schiit USB Interface as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0f.5/usb1/1-2/1-2:1.6/input/input3 [170760.323403] generic-usb 0003:0D8C:0304.0003: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.00 Device [CMEDIA Schiit USB Interface] on usb-0000:00:0f.5-2/input6 jam@jamnpd:~$ top top - 22:54:06 up 2 days, 30 min, 1 user, load average: 0.18, 0.24, 0.17 Tasks: 48 total, 1 running, 47 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie %Cpu(s): 18.8 us, 2.5 sy, 0.0 ni, 77.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 1.8 si, 0.0 st KiB Mem: 255284 total, 241808 used, 13476 free, 180 buffers KiB Swap: 0 total, 0 used, 0 free, 192488 cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 3553 mpd 20 0 111m 26m 4332 S 18.1 10.8 6:53.00 mpd 2402 root 20 0 79460 5436 1028 S 1.3 2.1 8:57.69 curlftpfs 4855 jam 20 0 2864 1192 868 R 1.0 0.5 0:02.94 top 1 root 20 0 2168 692 592 S 0.0 0.3 0:03.99 init 2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd 3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0 5 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.05 kworker/u:0 6 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0 7 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper 8 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.02 kdevtmpfs 9 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/u:1 123 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.50 sync_supers 125 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 bdi-default 127 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kblockd 236 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rpciod 237 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:10.33 kworker/0:1 254 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:03.41 kswapd0 255 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 fsnotify_mark 256 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 nfsiod 257 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 crypto 850 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kpsmoused 861 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 deferwq 915 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.28 khubd 933 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ata_sff 1085 root 20 0 2492 1044 724 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.51 udevd 1887 root 20 0 1732 64 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:08.86 logsave 2503 root 20 0 2264 780 572 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.35 rpcbind 2535 statd 20 0 2540 1212 800 S 0.0 0.5 0:00.01 rpc.statd 2547 root 20 0 2464 388 216 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 rpc.idmapd 2692 www-data 20 0 20572 4868 3188 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.14 php-cgi 2767 www-data 20 0 20572 1708 4 S 0.0 0.7 0:00.00 php-cgi 2812 syslog 20 0 1968 696 548 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.54 syslogd So everything is working great with lots of headroom. Also the Gungnir DAC has a "trouble" LED that lights up when jitter is over a treshold and it doesn't light up at all. Rock steady and gorgeous sounding.

Yes you're right. Just listed in free as used. 95% ram used. But there wasn't much available in free so I just thought to add to it, and indeed after adding it, it does get used during FS synchs. Well I'm not using ramdisk. The root filesystem is a CF memory card but the location of the db (as specified in /etc/mpd.conf) points to my ftpfs which comes from the NAS. I also tried changing its location to the local CF card but it didn't change the behavior. By the way the CF memory is not-readonly everywhere. The directories starting with "/var" are read-write and it is not-volatile. I noticed that the db file is rather small (around 300K) but perhaps this is right. Is there anything you suggest that I can try? I have to mention that for some reason, my mpd doesn't have the --create-db option. So maybe that's a clue right there. Maybe it just doesn't store the db.

For sure. Don' want to take anything away from caps. It's not as hard as it seems. The router is running dd-wrt a variant of Linux. The only thing thing different is that by default its filesystem is readonly and you need to mount it for writing before you can do any changes. After that it's just Linux commands. This thing that I built is headless (no display). The only way to administer it is via ssh and command line controls. But the clients are rich clients, ie. full graphics from your phone or tablet. So obviously not for someone not familiar with Linux. But even there, you can just follow online instructions. There is a lot of help for Linux users out there.

Wanted to give everyone an update on my music server. First off: I am so thrilled by it!! I finally received my Schiit Gungnir dac and boy oh boy, what a combo! For the enclosure I was reviewing various options until quite by accident I came upon an old LAN switch case that was very close in dimension to the Gungnir (Same height and width with maybe 3/4 the depth). I will take pictures soon, but for now too busy enjoying it. The performance is more than adequate for one mpd client. I've monitored carefully the CPU usage of both the Alix and the Buffalo router. For Alix, it rarely passes 15% CPU usage for 96/192 content. The buffalo, doing most of the ftp IO, clocks in at 20% but uses up to 95% of its memory. I added a bit more swap (another 120Mb from a USB drive) to it just to be on the safe side. What drives up the CPU usage is when the DB is rescanned. My DB is huge (~5Tb) so I can only do the rescan manually off listening hours, and it will take about 1 to 2 hours, and this taxes both CPUs to about 80%. For quick listening of new material, I use the command line "mpc add [newdirectory]" to create an on-the-fly playlist, and will reserve updating mpd's db only once a week, I think. So far the only glitch is the following: When Alix is powered down or rebooted (say after a power failure), I have to manually do a "mpc update" which will take its time rebuilding the mpd's DB. I don't quite understand why I have to do this, but if I don't, none of the songs will show in the mpd's clients. (I use MPaD for a tablet). Pictures to follow..

No, it is a regular NAS. On Alix, you have 2 USB-2 slots and 2 miniPCIs where you can put 2 Sata controllers in each. Something like this: Mini PCIe to SATA Controller Card - 2 Port | with Built-in RAID Support | StarTech.com Canada I think eventually I'd like to try that. Price-wise it might be cheaper than a NAS too. And you have a symmetric setup, meaning the OS's are at the same version so there is less chance of something amiss. In that scenario, the router goes away, you add a wireless card to the second Alix and configure the bridge in Voyage. The performance of a 600 Mhz Alix is far superior to my old Buffalo router. What you'll loose is the flexibility of a 4 port router and its graphical front end for configuration. And, there's practically no upper bound to the storage you can put on it.

Apologies: Guys and Gals.

To give you guys an update, my Alix card arrived a couple of days ago, and since I had my router already and my NAS, I started putting things together. What I haven't received yet, unfortunately, is my DAC. I'll try to gather here the steps needed to make this happen for anyone else who might like to try this. First thing to do is to configure the router. It becomes a repeater in essence to the main wireless router. I think you can use anything that can run DD-WRT or TomatoUSB. I'm using a Buffalo router with 4 LAN connections, a WAN (that I won't be using) and a USB port. A benefit of doing it this way is that if you place it in your living room, it extends the range and power of your router. Its configuration: - Disable WAN. I'm connecting the two routers wirelessly. But you can use a wire if you want, in which case it goes from your WAN to a LAN socket of your main router. - Give it a static IP address on the same network as your main. Exclude this from your main's DHCP. - Allow for NTP time client. - For wireless, set the mode to "Client Bridge", or "Routed", set the Default Gateway manually to the address of your main router, with the same channel and SSID as the main. - For wireless security, pick up the same credentials, mode and algorithm as your main. - Disable all services, such as DHCP, etc. I left sshd, for access. - If you're going to be using the USB (I'm not), configure it along with NAS, give it a mount point and user/password. That's pretty much it for the router. One port will go to the Alix, the remain ing 3 are available for NAS, or backup, or even a printer if you want. I noticed that my wireless range extended quite a bit. Now on to the Alix. I installed Voyage MPD on its CF card (a 2 Gb CF card is plenty). Voyage runs in readonly mode so the card should last a while. This is my usage after I was up and running: Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 1.9G 304M 1.5G 17% / udev 10M 0 10M 0% /dev tmpfs 25M 172K 25M 1% /run /dev/disk/by-label/ROOT_FS 1.9G 304M 1.5G 17% / tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock tmpfs 125M 0 125M 0% /run/shm tmpfs 125M 956K 124M 1% /tmp tmpfs 125M 956K 124M 1% /var/log tmpfs 125M 956K 124M 1% /var/tmp tmpfs 125M 956K 124M 1% /var/lib/mpd tmpfs 125M 956K 124M 1% /var/lib/alsa curlftpfs#ftp://user:[email protected]:/sda_part1/music/ 7.5T 0 7.5T 0% /mnt/music I'm using the ftp filesystem for speedy access to my NAS and it works quite well. I don't want to get too involved with explaining the voyage installation, except what stumbled me. They recommend getting a null modem cable and via a terminal emulation to hook it to your pc, but pc's not having a serial connection anymore, you'll need a USB/serial thingy and all of that is money. I opted instead to completely configure the OS on my PC and just plug it in the Alix. For that, I downloaded the VMWare player, which is free, and downloaded the VoyageMPD ISO disk image and giving an FS size of 2 Gb, first install it there as a VM. I then added the CF card to the PC (you can use any CF card reader), I ran the install script from there. the fuse ftpfs doesn't come with Voyage, so you'll have to get that later, once the Alix board is up and running. You'll do: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install curlftpfs then in the /etc/fstab you'll need a line like the one above showing my NAS. The nice thing is that once MPD is running, there's no end to how to control it. Any Apple device, iphone, ipad, any android device, PCs, etc.. You can also stream it back to the device, ie. let Alix play it through your main system, then through configuration, have your ipad access the exact same playlists. Or a secondary system. Or a third. You can also organize access by family member via permission settings. So, so far so good. Everything is tiny and low power so I'm confident I can fit it all in a box no bigger than a thin DVD player. Unfortunately I can't tell you how it sounds yet! No DAC!

Just the plastic boxes. And I intend to shield them separately. I think there are a few advantages that are missed. Low power is huge. The NAS and the router don't draw that much either, not compared to the computer. You'll be able to power it by batteries later on. Also upgradability/flexibility. Your computer's dead? Swap in another Alix board. Isn't it nice? And your data is safe in the NAS. I don't want to beat too much the cost on the head. Suffice to say that it will be comparable or cheaper. All my arguments on the price deal with the fact that you could do it for dirt cheap. Not that I will. I'll tally my costs and post them here. For me, the power supply is the biggest unknown. I'll have to calculate how much everything draws and build it. The good is that it will be of a much higher caliber than anything you can buy. The bad is that I don't know how sensitive the computer equipment is to a hard turn on. That's why I was asking about possibly adding a soft on circuit. They're pretty cheap so I might as well. Using different windings for different components was a good suggestion I think. It will be interesting, no?

$100 for a WD book, or $60 for an enclosure and add your drive. They're separate inside the enclosure. Why? The only connection is through an Ethernet cable. Of course they do. Or add another NAS to your network. Why do you think a NAS is so popular for large data storage? What part of what I'm proposing is difficult? My $30 Buffalo does. There's plenty of them. Not that I'll be using it mind you. Are my requirements not met by what I'm proposing? Single box, low power, low noise, flexible architecture, good separation between (off the shelf) components, reasonably cheap, and huge upgradability. What is it that you don't like? That I'm not doing what everybody else does?

There are a couple of reasons. One is the kernel. Windows needs a lot, memory, power, disk space, CPU. In comparison the Alix box draws very little power, Around 5W. You can leave it on all the time without feeling guilty. And low power consumption means lower heat and longer lasting components. The Alix's kernel just runs off of a CF card, so that when you're not playing music, nothing spins. No noise, no fan, no wear on the drive. That's for the computer. Having a networked NAS means practically no limit to the amount of storage you can add. You run out of space? No problem: add as much as you want, another NAS or more disks on the same. You're also keeping your data physically separate from your OS. Computer broken? Just replace or upgrade it. No need to worry about your music. Your NAS can be a RAID, hot swappable disks, etc. Your router implements the wireless functionality, and your NAS disk I/O so potentially your computer has very little noise. No need for expensive SoTM USB. You could even make it battery powered (my next upgrade) since it draws so little power. The cost is also low. The router: use anything that can be hacked. Any old thing will do, I'm using an old Buffalo that I picked up for $30. Alix? <$100. You're spending your money where it counts: storage of your valuable data. You can go super cheap here (a drive off of the router's USB) or super expensive. And everything is modular. You can upgrade each off the shelf component without worrying about OS drivers, support, compatibility, etc.