All,

 

I currently run a MythTV combo backend/frontend that records content from both a USB capture card (HD-PVR), as well as a network-based card (HDHR).  Additionally, this server utilizes a PCI Nvidia-based card for display.  I was thinking about setting up a MythTV VM on my unRAID 6.x platform to eliminate the need for that physical host.

 

Can anyone comment on how difficult it may be to get all those underlying h/w components working with an unRAID VM?

 

My unRAID server is running on an ASRock 960GC-GS FX motherboard flashed to the latest BIOS, along with an older but for now sufficient, AMD Athlon X2 5400+ CPU.  The unRAID console is reporting that HVM is enabled, but IOMMU is disabled.  I've checked the BIOS and I can't find any setting to enable IOMMU, so I assume this is a not possible on this particular motherboard.  I think that means it could run a VM, but I may not be able to pass the PCI video card up to the VM.  Is this correct? Would this also affect the USB pass-through?  I assume the network tuner will work as long as I bridge the network.

 

I've got an FX-8300 8-core CPU sitting here that I would consider using to upgrade the unRAID server, but only if running my particular MythTV hardware from a VM has promise.  I'll need to buy a new motherboard capable of IOMMU, among other things, so I thought I'd ask here before I spend any more money.  Otherwise, if the MythTV VM will be a hassle to configure, or be unstable afterwards, I'll just leave things alone for now.

 

Thanks,

Larry

You are correct that without IOMMU support you can not pass thru any hardware items.  I do not know whether the USB capture card will work using simple USB device pass thru, but my suspicion is that it will not and a USB controller would need passing thru (which would also need IOMMU support).

 

Perhaps you need to put v6 on a spare USB drive and try this out to find out?

Thanks.

 

I have a spare unraid license key I got as part of a 2-pack.  I'm not following, though.  How does loading up unraid from the spare help me prove the theory?

Why don't you try either the tvheadend or MythTV docker containers?  Neither would require passthrough in the same sense as a VM would.

Are you referring to the sparklyballs container?  I've been watching and waiting for that to reach a point of stability.  I'll take a look.  I was thinking a VM would be a safer bet than a docker container at this point...

Thanks.

 

I have a spare unraid license key I got as part of a 2-pack.  I'm not following, though.  How does loading up unraid from the spare help me prove the theory?

I was thinking that if you booted up from a different USB stick with v6 on it then you could try and create the VM and see how it goes?  By using a spare stick you start without any disks assigned so avoid any danger of upsetting the current configuration.

 

However if the suggested docker based approach works that is probably easier to set up and likely to be more reliable.

Are you referring to the sparklyballs container?  I've been watching and waiting for that to reach a point of stability.  I'll take a look.  I was thinking a VM would be a safer bet than a docker container at this point...

 

TVHeadEnd is definitely stable as I use it myself.  I'm pretty sure Sparklyballs actually uses his own container.

 

If you can't passthrough hardware then I think they're your only options, other than buying new hardware or something like a Homerun device...

Does anyone have a guide to getting a dual Hauppauge HD-PVR with IR emitters setup to run with the Docker Mythtv?  I am new to unRAID but I have used Mythtv for 10+ years.  Most of what I have worked with has been Fedora and Ubuntu so Slackware is a new animal to me and I would love to have a little guidance.  I am also looking for how to restore my 10+ year database in the Docker container.  :-) Thanks in advance for your help!!

I'm currently looking into setting up the HDPVR under a linux docker and while the media kernel build that can be found on this forum have the kernel driver for the HDPVR, they don't have the lirc_zilog module needed for the IR blaster. I've tried a couple of times to build my own kernel but I'm missing  something because I wasn't able to boot my custom image and now I just upgraded to the latest beta.

 

However, the capture portion seems to work very well.

I'm currently looking into setting up the HDPVR under a linux docker and while the media kernel build that can be found on this forum have the kernel driver for the HDPVR, they don't have the lirc_zilog module needed for the IR blaster. I've tried a couple of times to build my own kernel but I'm missing  something because I wasn't able to boot my custom image and now I just upgraded to the latest beta.

 

However, the capture portion seems to work very well.

 

Is the lirc_zilog module included in the kernel?

Lirc_zilog is in staging/media/lirc so it has to be specifically enabled.

Lirc_zilog is in staging/media/lirc so it has to be specifically enabled.

 

Doesn't look to me as if it's in the Kernel by default, at least I can't find it anywhere and reading around it seems problematic.

 

If you can tell me exactly where it is to enable when I do make menuconfig I'll enable it.

 

From the top level menuconfig: Device Drivers -> Staging Drivers -> Media Staging Drivers -> Linux Infrared Remote Control ... -> Zilog/Hauppauge IR transmitter.

 

Care to share your recipe for building the kernel?

 

 

 

 

From the top level menuconfig: Device Drivers -> Staging Drivers -> Media Staging Drivers -> Linux Infrared Remote Control ... -> Zilog/Hauppauge IR transmitter.

 

Care to share your recipe for building the kernel?

 

Install the unRAID DVB plugin in my signature from Community Applications.  I've updated the 6.1.9 and the 6.2 Beta 20 builds to include Lirc_zilog.

 

If you want to check out the build scripts then there is a link to my scripts in my github repo. 

 

Let me know if it works and I'll quite happily build future DVB builds with it included.

 

Post your reply in the unRAID DVB thread as this thread doesn't really belong in the General section anyhow.