April 27, 201016 yr I am trying to create a symlink on a client computer that links to a folder on one of my unRAID disks. The client computer is running XBMC which is based on Ubuntu. I am trying to link to //Tower1/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails. I have tried: ln -s smb://Tower1/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails thumbnails ln -s smb://192.168.1.20/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails thumbnails ln -s //Tower1/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails thumbnails ln -s //192.168.1.20/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails thumbnails ln -s smb://Tower1/mnt/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails Thumbnails ln -s //Tower1/mnt/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails Thumbnails ln -s smb://192.168.1.20/mnt/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails Thumbnails ln -s //192.168.1.20/mnt/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails Thumbnails While each of these creates the symlink on the client computer, it doesn't seem to work like the link is correct. Is there anything special I need to do because of unRAID?
April 27, 201016 yr ...on a client computer... Instea of... ln -s //192.168.1.20/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails thumbnails ...why don't you do... mount.cifs //192.168.1.20/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails thumbnails Won't that do it for you?
April 27, 201016 yr Author I have to admit ignorance on all things Linux so I don't know what that does. What I'm trying to do is centralize the thumbnails for my HTPC. Each client has them all stored locally in a folder named 'Thumbnails'. I'm trying to create a link that the local client sees as that 'Thumbnails' folder but actually points to a folder on my server. Does that do what I'm wanting?
April 27, 201016 yr I tried that and I get: -bash: mount.cifs: command not found That's strange. I thought XBMC had CIFS. What does it show when you type... cat /proc/filesystems Is cifs listed there?
April 27, 201016 yr Oh, Ubuntu!... Try this: sudo smbmount //192.168.1.20/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails /local_path_to/thumbnails If there's no 'smbmount' then do this first: sudo apt-get install smbfs
April 27, 201016 yr Author What does that do? I ask because this isn't a typical Ubuntu installation. It's a stripped down version that my media software XBMC uses. Why do you suggest this over a symlink. Will they not work with unRAID?
April 27, 201016 yr Author Also, doesn't that need a 'Thumbnails' folder on the XBMC client? If so, XBMC will just read/write to that folder and negate what I want to do. Unless I'm missing something.
April 27, 201016 yr Also, doesn't that need a 'Thumbnails' folder on the XBMC client? Yes, and empty one. If its not empty, the stuff in it will be hidden after the mount. If so, XBMC will just read/write to that folder and negate what I want to do. The server's Thumbnails folder will be mounted in the client's Thumbnails folder. If you don't want to allow the client to write there, you can mount it as read-only. (smbmount -o ro ........)
April 27, 201016 yr Why do you suggest this over a symlink. The link command can't take a unc path as source. Won't work as you discovered.
April 27, 201016 yr Author I get this error: mount error: can not change directory into mount target /Thumbnails
April 27, 201016 yr I get this error: mount error: can not change directory into mount target /Thumbnails Did you create the target folder? Is the target folder called /Thumbnails or /thumbnails ? (Linux is case-sensitive)
April 27, 201016 yr Author Yes, I created an empty folder named 'Thumbnails' on the client computer. From the location where the 'Thumbnails' folder should be, I ran: sudo smbmount //192.168.1.20/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails /Thumbnails That returned the mount error.
April 27, 201016 yr I don't know the answer to your question, RockDawg, but I just want to say that is one fine avatar.
April 27, 201016 yr From the location where the 'Thumbnails' folder should be, I ran: sudo smbmount //192.168.1.20/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails /Thumbnails The way you fully specified (starting with slash '/' ) the target directory, that means that it is under the root directory. So it doesn't matter from what location you're typing the monut command. But is the target really in your root directory? What do you see when you type: ls -la / (^^these are small 'L's like in lemon)
April 27, 201016 yr I have the same setup, so maybe I can help.. (running mysql on the unraid box for the xbmc database and also created a shared thumbnail folder) I created a folder called /mnt/xbmc on the xbmc machine (running xbmc live installed on hd) Create a share on the unraid server called xbmc and put *(rw) into the Export (NFS) field Create a directory in the xbmc share called Thumbnails (you can add other stuff too, I have a skin directory there as well) then on the xbmc machine, edit /etc/fstab and added this: 192.168.234.10:/mnt/user/xbmc /mnt/xbmc nfs rw,hard,intr 0 0 (replace ip with your unraid server ip) create a symlink in /home/xbmc/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails to /mnt/xbmc/Thumbnails reboot the xbmc box... I am sure there are easier and prettier ways of doing this, but this has worked for me very well..
April 28, 201016 yr Author From the location where the 'Thumbnails' folder should be, I ran: sudo smbmount //192.168.1.20/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails /Thumbnails The way you fully specified (starting with slash '/' ) the target directory, that means that it is under the root directory. So it doesn't matter from what location you're typing the monut command. But is the target really in your root directory? What do you see when you type: ls -la / (^^these are small 'L's like in lemon) Here is what I get: root@XBMCLive:/home/kevin/.xbmc/userdata# sudo smbmount //192.168.1.20/disk7/xbmc_thumbs/Thumbnails Thumbnails mount error: can not change directory into mount target Thumbnails
April 28, 201016 yr I'll ask again. Where's the target? Show us with "ls -la" so we can see it exists.
April 28, 201016 yr Author I have the same setup, so maybe I can help.. (running mysql on the unraid box for the xbmc database and also created a shared thumbnail folder) I created a folder called /mnt/xbmc on the xbmc machine (running xbmc live installed on hd) Create a share on the unraid server called xbmc and put *(rw) into the Export (NFS) field Create a directory in the xbmc share called Thumbnails (you can add other stuff too, I have a skin directory there as well) then on the xbmc machine, edit /etc/fstab and added this: 192.168.234.10:/mnt/user/xbmc /mnt/xbmc nfs rw,hard,intr 0 0 (replace ip with your unraid server ip) create a symlink in /home/xbmc/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails to /mnt/xbmc/Thumbnails reboot the xbmc box... I am sure there are easier and prettier ways of doing this, but this has worked for me very well.. Unbelievably this isn't working for me either. I'm miffed! I did every step you list and double-checked them all and still no thumbs show in XBMC. 1. I created /mnt/xbmc on the XBMC machine (also Live installed on HD) 2. I created a 'xbmc' user sharein unRAID with your setting in the Export (NFS) field. 3. I copied my existing Thumbnails folder into the newly created 'xbmc' 4. I edited /etc/fstab and copy/pasted the line you show 5. I created the 'Thumbnails' symlink in /home/kevin/.xbmc/userdata. Not in /home/kevin/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails like you show. I assume that was a typo. 6. I rebotted the XBMC machine, but no love. No thumbnails display in XBMC. I have one side question, if/when the symlink is created correctly, should I be able to see the contents when clicking on it in FileZilla FTP client or while navigating to the symlink folder in putty?
April 28, 201016 yr Author I'll ask again. Where's the target? Show us with "ls -la" so we can see it exists. Sorry, I'm trying a few different suggestions and I didn't respond to yours thoroughly enough. The full target path I am dealing with is /home/kevin/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails. root@XBMCLive:/home/kevin/.xbmc/userdata# ls -la / total 84 drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2010-02-18 21:11 . drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2010-02-18 21:11 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2010-02-06 16:36 bin drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2010-02-18 21:23 boot lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2010-01-23 22:40 cdrom -> media/cdrom drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 3760 2010-04-27 19:48 dev drwxr-xr-x 85 root root 4096 2010-04-27 19:48 etc drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 2010-04-25 17:04 home lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 2010-02-18 21:11 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-19-generic lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 2010-01-23 22:40 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-16-generic drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 4096 2010-02-18 21:11 lib drwx------ 2 root root 16384 2009-12-26 15:29 lost+found drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 2009-12-26 15:30 media drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2010-04-27 19:12 mnt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-12-26 15:30 opt dr-xr-xr-x 120 root root 0 2010-04-27 19:48 proc drwx------ 5 root root 4096 2010-02-18 23:10 root drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2010-04-26 21:29 sbin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-10-19 19:05 selinux drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-12-26 15:30 srv drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 0 2010-04-27 19:48 sys drwxrwxrwt 5 root root 4096 2010-04-27 19:48 tmp drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 2009-12-26 15:29 usr drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 2010-01-23 22:41 var lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 2010-02-18 21:11 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-19-generic lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 2010-01-23 22:41 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-16-generic
April 28, 201016 yr Author I don't know the answer to your question, RockDawg, but I just want to say that is one fine avatar. Thanks! Tesla was the man!
April 28, 201016 yr The full target path I am dealing with is /home/kevin/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails So now it must be obvious to you why '/Thumbnails' as target is giving an error -- it isn't there.
April 28, 201016 yr Author Yes, now I feel stupid! I was expecting the command to create the Thumbnails folder like creating a symlink would do. So stupid. Thanks so much for your patience and help!
May 2, 201016 yr Author I thought this was working, but it turns out it's not. I just figured out that initially XBMC wouldn't write/save the thumbs to the mounted Thumbnail directory. I wasn't sure why the newly scanned movies didn't show a thumb so I rebooted. Everything then seemed to work fine. It turns out that's because the mount/link is broken after a reboot and XBMC then just writes/saves the thumbs locally in the Thumbnail folder like it normally would. Nothing is written to the server's Thumbnails folder. So still no joy.
May 2, 201016 yr Author I've been told that the lost mount on reboot is expected unless I put it in /etc/init.d/rc.local. I didn't know that. But that still leaves the other problem.
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