How to get Transmission working in Freenas 8 from svn source

[jerrybme]

This How-to is a compendium from other posts per Joeschmuck's suggestion it would be nice to have the info in one place.

Transmission, firefly and minidlna are all included in the latest svn source. This How-to assumes you already know how to build your own freenas image or upgrade files. If not see these threads:
http://forums.freenas.org/showthrea...AS-(Part-1-Building-a-FreeBSD-Virtual-Machine)
http://forums.freenas.org/showthrea...ild-FreeNAS-(Part-2-Install-and-Build-FreeNAS)

In the steps below I use nano as my preferred editor, but you can use any of the installed editors, vi, ee, etc.

Step 1. Enable "MULTIMEDIA" your build
Once you've updated your source code:

Code:

cd trunk/
nano build/nano_env

Edit the line SW_FEATURES="DEBUG REPORTING" to SW_FEATURES="DEBUG REPORTING MULTIMEDIA"
save the file and build the files

Code:

sh build/do_build.sh

Step 2. Upgrade or install the newly built version. I prefer the upgrade route as it is simpler and you don't have to build the image file. See: http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Upgrading_FreeNAS#From_the_GUI

Step 3. Edit the Freenas files to configure Transmission
ssh into your Freenas box as root
Make it writeable

Code:

mount -wu /

Edit rc.conf

Code:

nano /conf/base/etc/rc.conf

Add the following lines:
transmission_enable="YES"
transmission_conf_dir="/mnt/location/where/you/keep-settings.json/file"
transmission_watch_dir="/mnt/watch/dir/location"
transmission_download_dir="/mnt/download/location"
transmission_user="www"
transmission_flags="-a 127.0.0.1,192.168.*.*"

The transmission_flags="-a 127.0.0.1,192.168.*.*" line allows connections to the Transmission webgui from your local network so you need to modify the 192.168 if your network is using a different IP range.

Save and exit the editor

Return Freenas to read only

Code:

mount -ro /

Step 4. Test to check it is working:

Code:

transmission-daemon -g /mnt/location/where/you/keep-settings.json/file

Now open a browser and point it the Transmission webgui:
http://Your.Feenas-IP:9091
Try adding a torrent through the gui to make sure the file locations from your settings.json are correct. You should also make sure the paths in the rc.conf match the ones in settings.json.

If Transmission fails to start on reboot, you may need to delay Transmission from loading until your storage drives are loaded. Masterpc details how to edit /conf/base/etc/local/rc.d/transmission so that it runs after the storage drives are mounted.

Thanks to all that have posted the above info in the various threads.

 

[joeschmuck]

Works for me. The problem is one thing, change your last mount statement to "mount -ro /" and that will retain your settings on reboot. I tried it out myself and it loaded during each bootstrap.

Also note that REPORTING has been recently introduced into the features sw flag. Anyone who is building this should be smart enough to figure it out. I'm thinking about dropping the reporting flag in my own builds.

-Mark

 

[jerrybme]

Works for me. The problem is one thing, change your last mount statement to "mount -ro /" and that will retain your settings on reboot. I tried it out myself and it loaded during each bootstrap.

Also note that REPORTING has been recently introduced into the features sw flag. Anyone who is building this should be smart enough to figure it out. I'm thinking about dropping the reporting flag in my own builds.

-Mark

Good points Mark, updated the first post.

Got my transmission working on reboot. Had a real "Doh!" moment when I realized I had mis-spelled "transmission_enable" in the rc.conf. Software is so picky about spelling

 

[joeschmuck]

Step 4 still needs an extra "s" in transmission. Yea, I put enabled yesterday and realized it should have been enable. Glad it's working. I don't use bit torrent enough (2 -3 times a year) to warrant installing it on the FreeNAS box, I just run it from a VM XP machine if I need it.

 

[jerrybme]

Fixed step 4.
Going to try enabling firefly next. I don't really need it but like messing around ;-)

Jerry

 

[Hi-Liter]

Hi, I would like to use the nightly builds from sourceforge for upgrading from the web GUI, but I was wondering why there are no *amd64-GUI_Upgrade.xz files for the recent releases? Can I just use e.g. FreeNAS-8r8022-amd64.xz to upgrade via the web GUI?

 

[jerrybme]

Hi, I would like to use the nightly builds from sourceforge for upgrading from the web GUI, but I was wondering why there are no *amd64-GUI_Upgrade.xz files for the recent releases? Can I just use e.g. FreeNAS-8r8022-amd64.xz to upgrade via the web GUI?

Not sure why there aren't any "upgrade.xz" files but I use the "full.xz" and upgrade sucessfully via the gui. However, if you are looking for the extra apps - Transmission, minidlna & firefly they won't be in the nightly builds. You have to modify the software options and compile your own.

 

[Hi-Liter]

Thanks for the answer, so when building the sources from svn, I was wondering about the "SW_FEATURES="DEBUG REPORTING MULTIMEDIA" setting. I guess this means FreeNAS will be compiled in debug mode? Could I change it to "RELEASE" since I guess the debug mode would be slower than release.

 

[gcooper]

Thanks for the answer, so when building the sources from svn, I was wondering about the "SW_FEATURES="DEBUG REPORTING MULTIMEDIA" setting. I guess this means FreeNAS will be compiled in debug mode? Could I change it to "RELEASE" since I guess the debug mode would be slower than release.

The only difference between DEBUG and non-DEBUG images are there are a ton of extra packages that shouldn't belong in release images (like git, svn, etc).

 

[dannyb78]

great, it's working for me.
I needed to edit my setting.json file and specify folder and white-list again.

 

[dannyb78]

OOPs! I have some issue at reboot. Followed masterpc instruction I delayed transmission daemon start, but I always get a "undefined variable" message and daemon stops. I starts just typing transmission-daemon -g /settings-path and all works fine.
there is some more detailed logs, so I can find what variable is undefined?

 

[Hi-Liter]

great, it's working for me.
I needed to edit my setting.json file and specify folder and white-list again.

Could you tell me which revision you compiled? I tried a couple and none of them actually worked (either had a blank screen on the Web UI or wouldn't even boot).

 

[dannyb78]

FreeNAS-8.1-r8398-amd64

I have a stupid issue on autostart, probably a mis-typing error. once manually started the daemon it works fine

 

[jerrybme]

OOPs! I have some issue at reboot. Followed masterpc instruction I delayed transmission daemon start, but I always get a "undefined variable" message and daemon stops. I starts just typing transmission-daemon -g /settings-path and all works fine.
there is some more detailed logs, so I can find what variable is undefined?

You probably either mis-typed or added an extra character when you edited the startup script. I'd go back and double check the edits made. Good luck.

 

[dannyb78]

thanks jerry, I already solved. It was a permission related issue on download and config folders ;)

 

[Accurus]

I just created a USB image based on the Freenas 8723 source code. Everything in bittorrent works, but my question is why it shows version 2.32 when in the changelog for version 8495 Transmission 2.42 was supposed to have been integrated. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for any input.

 

[gcooper]

I just created a USB image based on the Freenas 8723 source code. Everything in bittorrent works, but my question is why it shows version 2.32 when in the changelog for version 8495 Transmission 2.42 was supposed to have been integrated. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for any input.

Wrong branch. I'll look at forklift upgrading the ports tree anyhow.

 

[Accurus]

Thanks for your response.

I have been using FreeNAS for the last 2 months and it is such an amazing and powerful product. Thank you for your efforts.

 

[gcooper]

Thanks for your response.

I have been using FreeNAS for the last 2 months and it is such an amazing and powerful product. Thank you for your efforts.

No problem :)... we're working on creating an initial set of plugins for 8.2, and this [along with a minidlna plugin] is targeted for that release around the end of the year.