Mailing List Archive: mythtv networked setup

mythtv networked setup

mcpcs at ivwnet

May 6, 2003, 9:20 AM

Post #1 of 3 (1199 views)

OK guys, mythtv is great, but I'm close to reaching the end of my rope
regarding a networked mythtv setup.

I have two machines (call them alice and betty), identically equiped for
networked mythtv use. Alice and Betty have their own storage and
capture card. Alice is the "Master backend" and hosts the mythtv DB.

For the life of me, it seems that my mythtv setup only records files to
Betty's storage if Alice happens to be recording at the same time.
Otherwise all recorded files end up on Alice. Also when watching live
TV on Betty, it seems that the "live" ringbuffer is on Alice (when Alice
is "free"). Is this the correct mythtv behavior?

How do I configure the neworked mythtv so that the storage on Betty
gets as much use as Alice, and that the live TV (for betty) ringbuffer
resides locally on Betty?

I had this working once, but can no longer get it to work.

Thanks,
Mark

Details:

mysql> select * from capturecard;
+--------+-------------+-------------+-----------+----------+--------------+----
------------+-------------------+
| cardid | videodevice | audiodevice | vbidevice | cardtype | defaultinput
|
audioratelimit | hostname
|+--------+-------------+-------------+-----------+----------+--------------+---
-------------+-------------------+| 1 | /dev/video | /dev/dsp |
/dev/vbi0 | V4L | Television | 32000 | alice.nowhere.com |
| 2 | /dev/video | /dev/dsp2 | /dev/vbi0 | V4L | Television
| 32000 | betty.nowhere.com |
+--------+-------------+-------------+-----------+----------+--------------+----
------------+-------------------+

mysql> select * fromcard input;
+-------------+--------+----------+------------+-----------------+------------+-
----------+----------+-----------+
| cardinputid | cardid | sourceid | inputname | externalcommand |
preference
| shareable | tunechan | startchan |
+-------------+--------+----------+------------+-----------------+------------+-
----------+----------+-----------+
| 1 | 1 | 1 | Television | | NULL
| N | | 10 |
| 2 | 2 | 1 | Television | | NULL
| N | | 5 |
+-------------+--------+----------+------------+-----------------+------------+-
----------+----------+-----------+

mysql> select * from settings where valuelike "%erIP" or data like
"/var%";
+------------------+--------------+-------------------+
| value | data |hostname|
+------------------+--------------+-------------------+
| BackendServerIP |192.168.1.20 | alice.nowhere.com |
| MasterServerIP |192.168.1.20 | NULL |
| RecordFilePrefix | /var/video | alice.nowhere.com |
| LiveBufferDir | /var/video | alice.nowhere.com |
| BackendServerIP | 192.168.1.21 | betty.nowhere.com |
| RecordFilePrefix | /var/video | betty.nowhere.com |
| LiveBufferDir |/var/video | betty.nowhere.com |
+------------------+--------------+-------------------+

mysql.txt on alice and betty:
DBHostName=192.168.1.20

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Re: mythtv networked setup [ In reply to ]

May 7, 2003, 12:53 AM

Post #2 of 3 (1171 views)

Mark Chou wrote:
> OK guys, mythtv is great, but I'm close to reaching the end of my rope
> regarding a networked mythtv setup.
>
> I have two machines (call them alice and betty), identically equiped for
> networked mythtv use. Alice and Betty have their own storage and
> capture card. Alice is the "Master backend" and hosts the mythtv DB.
>
> For the life of me, it seems that my mythtv setup only records files to
> Betty's storage if Alice happens to be recording at the same time.

There is no round-robin scheme. The first input is always
first and the second is only used when the first is busy. The
third only where one and two are busy or unavailable, etc.

> Otherwise all recorded files end up on Alice. Also when watching live
> TV on Betty, it seems that the "live" ringbuffer is on Alice (when Alice
> is "free"). Is this the correct mythtv behavior?

Variation of the same. Until this evening, LiveTV would
simply choose the first available tuner regardless of the
frontend host.

> How do I configure the neworked mythtv so that the storage on Betty
> gets as much use as Alice,

Storage management is a vast unexplored territory in MythTV ;-).
There is no easy way to do this currently and there may not
be in the foreseeable future. Some people like to know that
their 'best' tuner will always be chosen first. The best thing
to do for now is to put your biggest disks on the master.

> and that the live TV (for betty) ringbuffer
> resides locally on Betty?

Fixed in CVS. This has been a long standing, low priority
feature request. It now checks to see if there is an available
tuner on the same machine as the frontend. If not, it will
use any other available tuner.

-- bjm

Re: mythtv networked setup [ In reply to ]

May 7, 2003, 6:53 AM

Post #3 of 3 (1199 views)

On Wednesday 07 May 2003 03:53 am, Bruce Markey wrote:
> Fixed in CVS. This has been a long standing, low priority
> feature request. It now checks to see if there is an available
> tuner on the same machine as the frontend. If not, it will
> use any other available tuner.

Any reason why you sent the hostname along with the request, instead of just
using the hostname stored in the playbacksock? Didn't have to change the
protocol at all..

Isaac