Tim Jackson

As part of my low power mini Linux NAS project, I wanted to be able to share photos and videos simply to other devices on the local network, specifically a TV (it’s nice to be able to browse photos there).

Requirements:

• Runs as a service on a Linux server (no GUI)
• Simple to configure (so I can forget about it)
• Works with a Samsung Smart TV

I can live without transcoding and fancy stuff, so after looking at Servio (full-featured, nice – tested it on Windows too) and ushare (looks good but less maintained currently),  I came to the conclusion that ReadyMedia (formerly minidlna) looked like the simplest and best solution. (It’s incidentally developed by Netgear for their ReadyNAS products)

Installing ReadyMedia/minidlna on RHEL6

Unfortunately, (due to some of the media libraries it depends on not being available in RHEL/EPEL, presumably due to patent or licensing issues), ReadyShare is not available in the “usual” repositories such as EPEL. However, I found a package over on the li.nux.ro site which I’m not familiar with. The version wasn’t current, and a couple of things needed fixing (including the init file), so I updated the package and rebuilt – the built packages are below:

• ReadyMedia/minidlna RPM for RHEL6 and clones (x86_64)
• ReadyMedia/minidlna SRPM for RHEL6 and clones (source RPM)

Configuring ReadyMedia/minidlna

Configuring ReadyMedia is extremely simple – it suffices in the first instance to just define where your media are located with one or more media_dir directives:

media_dir=P,/path/to/Pictures
media_dir=A,/path/to/Music

I also set friendly_name (to specify a name that will be shown up on other devices) and shrank notify_interval (to try to pick up newly-added files faster).

Then, start the service (service minidlna start) and browse from another device on the network that supports DLNA (e.g. TV). Works!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013 at 20:16 and is filed under Uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.