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Dec 4, 2015

HOWTO: Configuring Kodi to use NAS4Free MySQL DB for central library

If you haven't already installed and setup MySQL on your NAS4Free box, I suggest you follow this guide:
http://www.geekfreely.com/2015/12/howto-mysql-install-guide-for-nas4free.html

We start off by making a for Kodi to access the DB. First we need to login to the MySQL environment to define the user:

mysql -u root -p

Note: If MySQL isn't started then

Enter the password for  root and then create the Kodi user, here I call them xbmc for nostalgia:

CREATE USER 'xbmc' IDENTIFIED BY 'xbmc';
GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'xbmc';
quit;

Create (or add to, if you already have one) an advancedsettings.xml file in your Kodi userdata folder.
Using nano copy and paste the following information into the advancedsettings.xml file, if there is already content, merge the sections appropriately:

advancedsettings.xml configuration found in the following location:
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Share_libraries_using_MySQL/Setting_up_XBMC

And should look like this:

<advancedsettings>
    <videodatabase>
        <type>mysql</type>
        <host>***.***.***.***</host>
        <port>3306</port>
        <user>xbmc</user>
        <pass>xbmc</pass>
    </videodatabase>

    <musicdatabase>
        <type>mysql</type>
        <host>***.***.***.***</host>
        <port>3306</port>
        <user>xbmc</user>
        <pass>xbmc</pass>
    </musicdatabase>

     <videolibrary>
          <importwatchedstate>true</importwatchedstate>
     </videolibrary>
</advancedsettings>

Replace the two instances of ***.***.***.*** with local network IP address of your NAS4Free server. It is recommended not to use its NetBIOS name, as not all devices may be able to resolve them.

Save the file as advancedsettings.xml.  Copy this advancedsettings.xml file you just created to the userdata folder of every Kodi install you want to sync .

If you exported your existing DBs, go ahead and import them.  If you created a fresh DB, scan all your content again, make sure to use the NAS4Free server IP rather than NetBIOS for your shares, as mentioned - not all devices may resolve the NetBIOS.

As a final note, specifically with OpenELEC and Raspberry Pi, although OpenELEC suggest this for WiFi boxes, set Wait for network before starting Kodi under OpenELEC addon settings, network.
That is it...you should be good to go.  Let me know how it goes for you, or if you have any issues.

HOWTO: MySQL install guide for NAS4Free 10.2.x

In some of my previous posts I have written about using NAS4Free and installing various extensions on the system, well it was time to upgrade my NAS4Free but I didn't have the space on the Operating System drive - so a complete re-install was looming.

As daunting as it was, it was inevitable that I had to redo everything, but thanks to the new package manager in FreeBSD 10.x this turned out to be an enjoyable exercise.

The first step I decided to tackle was implementing the MySQL DB on NAS4Free, so I could provide a shared DB for Kodi installs.

First let's determine an appropriate location to install the temporary files for installation:

setenv PKG_TMPDIR /mnt/Data

Next let's create the appropriate user and group for the MySQL install in NAS4Free:

Group
Name: mysql
ID: 88

User
Name: mysql
Fullname: mysql
UserID: 88
Primary Group: mysql
NO PASSWORD

After defining the user to access the MySQL DB, the next step was installing MySQL server, using the following commands:

pkg install mysql56-server
rehash
cd /usr/local
mysql_install_db

At this point it is good practice to confirm that MySQL will indeed starts:

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server onestart

Hopefully everything is good at this point and, the next step is to make sure that MySQL is enabled in NAS4Free:

nano /etc/rc.conf

Add the following line to the rc.conf file:

mysql_enable="YES"

Now you should be good to go.

If you want to configure this for Kodi to use, check out the following guide:
http://www.geekfreely.com/2015/12/howto-configuring-kodi-to-use-nas4free.html

HOWTO: OpenVPN installation guide for NAS4Free 10.2.x

So as you may have read in earlier posts - I did a complete reinstall of my NAS4Free server and setup all services running on it. Here in this post I will describe the steps required to install OpenVPN on your NAS4Free server, and configure it to start automatically on bootup.

First let's determine an appropriate location to install the temporary files for installation:

setenv PKG_TMPDIR /mnt/Data/tmp/

Next let's install all the required components: curl, expect:

pkg install openvpn
pkg install curl
pkg install expect

Typing the following command will update yourr shell session with the new commands available based on the installed packages:

rehash

Move openvpn file so it does not get executed every time thesystem is started, otherwise your boot process will stop and you will be prompted for a username/password.  NAS4Free executes all the files inside "rc.d" folder on startup.

mkdir /usr/local/etc/openvpn
mv /usr/local/etc/rc.d/openvpn /usr/local/etc/openvpn/

Edit startup settings and add OpenVPN support:

nano /etc/rc.conf

Add the following:

openvpn_enable=YES"

And ONE of the following, this is based on your VPN provider (check the opvn file contents to determine which to use):

openvpn_if="tun"
openvpn_if="dev"

Now retrieve the relevant information from your VPN provider: certificates, location, configuration files etc. Rename the certificate (*.crt) and chosen location (*ovpn) to openvpn.crt and openvpn.conf, and copy *.pem file.

Install certificates (.crt) and location (.ovpn) files:

mkdir /usr/local/etc/openvpn
mv openvpn* /usr/local/etc/openvpn/
mv *.pem /usr/local/etc/openvpn/

Make sure the certificate authority configuration line (ca) is set to openvpn.crt by editing the following file:

nano /usr/local/etc/openvpn/openvpn.conf

Now it's time to test OpenVPN and make sure you have an appropriate IP.

/usr/local/etc/openvpn/openvpn start /usr/local/etc/openvpn/
curl icanhazip.com

The curl command should return your NAS' new WAN IP, and this should be different to your regular WAN IP - as it should be now based on the location file you provided.

Now we need to configure OpenVP to start and connect on startup, so let's create an auto-sign-on script, and make it executable:

nano /usr/local/etc/openvpn/autosignon
chmod +x autosignon

Paste the following, and edit username and password to match your details, for your VPN provider:

#!/usr/local/bin/expect -f
set force_conservative 0
spawn /usr/local/etc/openvpn/openvpn start /usr/local/etc/openvpn/openvpn.conf
match_max 100000
expect -exact "Enter Auth Username:"
send "YOUR USERNAME"
send "\r"
expect -exact "Enter Auth Password:"
send "YOUR PASSWORD"
send "\r"
expect eof

Add the following command script PreInit (System|Advanced|Command Scripts) via your NAS4Free web interface:

/usr/local/etc/openvpn/autosignon

Reboot your machine and you should be automatically connected to your VPN service.