Freenas 8 and Boxee Box

[calgarychris]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone out there is running Freenas and has a Boxee box connected? I have got Freenas setup, fairly basic I believe, currently with AFP, NFS and SMB shares on. I can't seem to get BB to see them on the network, even though my Win7 machine and Mac find and transfer to it perfectly...

My current set up is:

BB with 1.1.3.19252 (Jun 22)
Freenas server set to 192.168.1.50
DNS-323
Win7 PC
iMac
DAP-1522

The BB is wired directly to the DAP-1522 and can load files from the DNS-323 no issues. Works beautifully. The new server has AFP, SMB and NFS enabled and essentially two users are granted access "Guest" and "Tom". Both users have the same passwords "***x".

The SMB share is browsable and allows guest access. My Win7 machine can read files with no issue as can my iMac using AFP. I need BB to access the server but I'm a noob when it comes to this stuff.

On BB, under Settings --> Network --> Servers I have checked Enable Windows sharing and the workgroup is WORKGROUP. I left the share password blank (I'm assuming this actually allows for browsing onto BB from another PC). Currently under SMB Client it's all set to defaults (blank, blank, blank, WORKGROUP)

I have repeatedly gone into Settings --> File Sources and manually entered the IP address 192.168.1.50 with user name, without, with pw, without but most times it simply spins the blue search circle and comes back with nothing. As I have now downgraded the fw to this version, it now comes back with the message "Error Connection Timed Out".

Can anyone *please* assist? I'm not sure if I'm supposed to put more than just the IP address (i.e. the share is called "Windows" on Freenas and is linked to /mnt/Volume1 and then has a bunch of subdirectories). I'm sure it's something I'm doing incorrectly, but then again, both my computers can find the shares no problem...Any and all help greatly appreciated! I love the BB and it works great with the DNS, I just need more space.

Thanks very much for your time
Chris

 

[ProtoSD]

Hmmm, I wonder if problem is related. Another user posted with a very similiar problem but using WDTV on this post:

WDTV-Live-&-FreeNAS-8.0.1&highlight=wdtv

Sorry I don't have any ideas for either of you, but I'll bet the answer is the same.

EDIT: It looks like that question was answered in the link I posted above. I merged the threads since they were related.

 

[Spud]

Hi, I'm using a Boxee box with freenas 8 and don't have any problems accessing any of the shared directies.

 

[calgarychris]

Hi Spud,

That's good - so it's not hopeless for me! :) Could you possibly message me with details of how you set it up? Which protocol are you using (NFS, AFP, Samba)? It's got to be a permissions/access thing I guess. I will happily (ecstatically) replicate your setup if I can. Boxee has been, so far, unable to figure out what's wrong and my whole point of the Freenas server was to use it with Boxee...

Thanks very much for any help you can offer!

Chris

 

[Spud]

Hi,

I only use SMB (samba) and I would take a guess and say its either a permission problem or you have a password/user problem.

Try setting up a connection using the same login and password you have on your windows 7 machine.

Let me know how that goes.

 

[calgarychris]

Hi Spud,

Thanks - sorry for the slow response, I'll give that a try tonight, I was out of country...I don't know how that'll work, but at this point, I'll try anything! :)

 

[Spud]

What user name are you using to log into the NAS box from the Boxee?

Is it the same one your using on the windows 7 machine?

Thats what I'm asking, because you know that login and password works!

 

[calgarychris]

Grrr...It's definitely got to be the permissions. I tried the user "Chris" with the password I use on the Win7 machine, but it couldn't find the share. The problem seems to be that the share doesn't even show up on BB. The forums on Boxee suggest you need to have nmdb running - do you? How do you get it up and running? Anyway, part of the problem may have been that I had the user "chris" (small c) on FreeNAS and the Win machine is "Chris". Anyway, I think I need to start from scratch, as I tried to get clever by deleting users and I ended up royally stuffing it up. I'm now locked out of the server from all my computers!!! Ha, gosh, I'm out of my element. If you can bear with my newbishness, here's what I would like to do:

I have a big zfs volume called Volume1 that contains a couple of directories of media. I would like to have the ability to read and write to that volume from my mac and my PC, with a minimum of fuss (i.e. username and password entered only once and "saved"). In addition, I would like to have BB be able to read (and write if required). I previously had AFP for the Mac and was trying to get Samba for BB and the PC (it worked for the latter). Part of my confusion is that the instructions in FreeNAS suggest that you have to assign a user to the Volume, but I have two users (one Mac, one PC) and I didn't know how that worked. Can you assist me? I'll happily start from scratch with users, groups and permissions...

Thanks Spud, I appreciate your patience.

Chris

 

[Spud]

No problem, check this out and see how you go.

http://toosmartguys.com/freenas-8-ep3-configuration

It pretty much covers everything in freenas you need running.

I only have CIFS shares running on my NAS box and nmdb is running, nmdb is part of samba so I guess its automatically started when you turn on CIFS shares.

You can easily check to see you have have it running on your nas box by logging in and scrolling all the way to the bottom left hand windows and clicking on display system processes

I cant see the problem being the boxee to be honest, it has to be something in the nas box.

I'm no expert in Macs but I'm pretty sure they can see windows shares.

 

[calgarychris]

Hi Spud,

Well, the adventure continues...Anyway, I wanted to try setting up a user on Freenas called "boxeebox" - since Freenas suggests that you create users that match computer names. Any idea how to either set no password or set BB up with a password that I can replicate on the NAS?

Thanks
Chris

edit: Nevermind, somehow I managed to get BB to find Freenas - it was definitely the way I had permissions and set up CIFS Shares...I still have no idea what I did differently, but finally, at last, progress! Thanks for telling me it was possible Spud!