How do I create AFP mount on AppleTV to get to my Mac's Movie folder? Options

[stukey]

Hi all

I've installed the great ATVFiles plugin and can now see the contents of the /Users/frontrow/Movies folder from my AppleTV. What I'd like to do now is set-up an AFP mount in /Users/frontrow/Movies on the AppleTV to redirect to my iMac's Movies folder. Then I can just access all of my movie files without having to copy them to the AppleTV or sync via iTunes. I've managed to set-up an AFP mount but it mounts my entire iMac's HD.

I just want the mount to go directly to /Users/myusername/Movies on my iMac! Any ideas how I do this?

Also, how can I make the mount persistent between reboots of the AppleTV?

This is what I've done so so far...

1. SSH to AppleTV
2. Make the OSBoot Volume read-write: sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/disk0s3 /
3. Mount the AFP share: mount_afp -i afp://iMac.Local/Mac\ HD /Users/frontrow/Movies

Many thanks!

Stukey

[hazkid]

i'm not 100% sure of this, but it could possible to use a unix link:

CODE

ln -s afp://your.mac.ip/Users/YourShortName/Movies

this command, run on your mac, should deposit a link in your home folder, which you could then ssh to frontrow/Movies on your ATV.
Warning: I have no idea whether this will work, I've only used it for local drives and a hacked ATV Finder.

[stukey]

Hi Hazkid

Thanks for the idea. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work. It created the symlink but when you try to access it, you just get "No such file or directory" errors.

Anybody else have any ideas about this?

Thanks,

Stu

[mpoyser]

Guys

I also got ATVFiles Plugin and v impressed with all the great stuff going on already after release , Need to get this AFP mount working in the movies folder the XBMC is going to be switched off and the old xbox put to rest.

Anyone got anyfutehr with this ? managed to get teh stuff mounted ?

[neztik]

I was having the same problem. Since my Movies and TV shows were in /Users/neztik/Movies and /Users/neztik/TV shows. I was unable to afp mount them without mounting the whole drive. So then I decided to do a NFS server on my Windows box and then I can mount -t nfs serverip:/Movies /Users/frontrow/Movies/Movies and so on. So I guess you could just get NFS server working on the OSX and do the same. I have alot of media on my Windows box so I decided to go that route. It is working great. I have 3 NFS shares all mounted in different directorys under /Users/frontrow/Movies and I can stream and play any of them.


I too am ready to retire my XBMC. Just need a few more things like the ability to play my .img and .iso DVD movies. I am going to throw some 720p content at it later tonight. If anyone wants any more info on the NFS stuff I used in windows let me know.

[stukey]

Hi again.

I understand that you're running the NFS sever on Windows, so I'll have to figure out how to do that on my iMac... but any chance you can provide info on how you set-up the NFS shares mounted under /Users/frontrow/Movies. From the info I can find on the web, I thought you have to mount NFS shares under /mnt?

Thanks!

Stu

[GoodOmens]

Use the mount_afp command

http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Mount_a_Remote_Drive_via_AFP

[stukey]

Use the mount_afp command

http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Mount_a_Remote_Drive_via_AFP

Hi. I tried the above but it mounts my iMac's entire 'Mac HD' volume. I just want to be able to see the /Movies folders in my user account on the iMac. I don't want to have to wade through masses of folders from within the ATVFiles plugin.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Stu

[neztik]

From appleTV I created two directorys off /Users/frontrow/Movies.

mkdir /Users/frontrow/Movies/dvr1
mkdir /Users/frontrow/Movies/dvr2

mount -t nfs 192.168.1.245:/dvr1 /Users/frontrow/Movies/dvr1
mount -t nfs 192.168.1.245:/dvr2 /Users/frontrow/Movies/dvr2

This is how I connect to my NFS drives on Windows box. I am just running a NFS server and allow allow all hosts, read access.

[GoodOmens]

Hi. I tried the above but it mounts my iMac's entire 'Mac HD' volume. I just want to be able to see the /Movies folders in my user account on the iMac. I don't want to have to wade through masses of folders from within the ATVFiles plugin.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Stu

Mount it like this:

mount_afp -i afp://joey-imac/Macintosh\ HD /Volumes/imac

Then do

ln -s /Volumes/imac/whatever /Users/frontrow/afp


You might be able to do a folder mount with the mount_afp command ... I don't have the capabilites to try it out though as I haven't hacked my atv nor do I have a mac.

[teppic]

Hi. I tried the above but it mounts my iMac's entire 'Mac HD' volume. I just want to be able to see the /Movies folders in my user account on the iMac. I don't want to have to wade through masses of folders from within the ATVFiles plugin.

You can add arbitrary share points with MacOS Server, or with SharePoint if you're using plain old MacOS.

[dlorenzo]

You can mount it using the mount_nfs command.

I use

mkdir /Users/frontrow/Movies/Remote

sudo mount_nfs -P 192.168.1.20:/raid/data/Movies /Users/frontrow/Movies/Remote

and it works great, however I can't see the folder (I know its mounted just type mount on terminal and you'll see it) and frontrow can see it but I can't see it in finder. This happens to me at my iMac as well, has anyone come up with a way to make it visible??

[stukey]

Hi all,

I finally got this working. I just didn't know that you could mount the NFS share under /Users/frontrow/Movies. I though you had to do it under /mnt as per my previous post. Anyway, here's what I did to set-up NFS shares on my iMac and then share the /Movies/ folder and then view it using the ATVFiles plugin on AppleTV:

1. Configure NFS shares on host system using NFS Manager. Restart host to make sure shares are active.

2. SSH to AppleTV:

ssh -1 frontrow@AppleTV.local

3. Create mount point in /frontrow home directory (in this case, in the Movies folder) called 'iMac'

mkdir /Users/frontrow/Movies/iMac

4. Mount NFS share on 'iMac' mount point on AppleTV:

mount_nfs myhost.local:/Users/username/Movies /Users/frontrow/Movies/iMac

I just need to figure out how to make the NFS mount permanent, e.g. so that is remains between reboots of the AppleTV. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Stu

[mei123]

Would someone please help me, I followed the directions on the page but i keep getting this error
mount_nfs: can't get net id for host
What am i doing wrong

[eshaheen]

I need some help here... I setup my AppleTV to show the contents of my iMac's hard drive when I go into the "Files" section. Instead I would like for it to access a firewire drive that is connected to my iMac that contains several video files. I cannot figure out how to remove the link to the iMac drive and have it connect to something else. It is also not showing me the video files that are on the AppleTV inside the Movies folder since I did this.

[stukey]

I need some help here... I setup my AppleTV to show the contents of my iMac's hard drive when I go into the "Files" section. Instead I would like for it to access a firewire drive that is connected to my iMac that contains several video files. I cannot figure out how to remove the link to the iMac drive and have it connect to something else. It is also not showing me the video files that are on the AppleTV inside the Movies folder since I did this.

Hi eshaheen

1. To unmount your existing mount point, use the umount command. So for example, if you used /Users/frontrow/Movies as your mount-point, you would need to use the following command in the terminal (assuming you've already opened an ssh connection to your AppleTV):

umount /Users/frontrow/Movies

2. With regards to the ATVFiles plugin not showing the contents of your AppleTV's local /Movies folder since creating your AFP mount, it sounds as if you've set /Users/frontrow/Movies as your actual mount-point for your AFP share on your iMac. This means that /Movies will always redirect to your share until either you unmount the share (using the approach outlined in step 1 above) or reboot your AppleTV. I suggest that you create a sub-dir in /Users/frontrow/Movies on the AppleTV and then mount your AFP share point to the sub-dir. That way, you can still access the local files on your AppleTV and your files on the remote share. For example you could create an 'iMac' sub-folder under /Movies like so:

mkdir /Users/frontrow/Movies/iMac

And then create your mount point to your AFP or NFS share to /Users/frontrow/Movies/iMac instead of /Users/frontrow/Movies

3. I think you can set the mount point to your iMac's external firewire drive by referencing the drive name of the external drive instead of your iMac's internal HDD name. At least this seems to work with NFS shares (e.g. mount_nfs iMac.local:/Volumes/ExternalHDD/Movies /Users/frontrow/Movies/iMac)

Hope this helps.... I'm just learning about all this stuff myself!

Cheers,

Stu

Would someone please help me, I followed the directions on the page but i keep getting this error
mount_nfs: can't get net id for host
What am i doing wrong

Hi mei123!

Not sure what "can't get net ID for host" means. I pretty new to all this myself. Maybe somebody with more UNIX experience can advise. Are you using the host name or IP address in your mount_nfs command? Maybe the command can't resolve the host name to the IP address. Try using the IP address instead of the host name and also make sure that you've set-up the NFS shares on your target system correctly. Might be worth trying to ping your target system from the AppleTV to check name/address resolution.

Cheers,

Stu

[eshaheen]

3. I think you can set the mount point to your iMac's external firewire drive by referencing the drive name of the external drive instead of your iMac's internal HDD name. At least this seems to work with NFS shares (e.g. mount_nfs iMac.local:/Volumes/ExternalHDD/Movies /Users/frontrow/Movies/iMac)

Thanks - this really helped. I have now been able to unmount the share points I do not want. My new problem is getting it to mount the external drive... I entered the command below, but get an error at the end.

mount_afp -i afp://Eric-Shaheens-Core-2-Duo-iMac.local:/Volumes/mylife /Users/frontrow/Movies/iMac/

mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error -5019, errno is 2

Any ideas where I am going wrong?

Thanks - this really helped. I have now been able to unmount the share points I do not want. My new problem is getting it to mount the external drive... I entered the command below, but get an error at the end.

mount_afp -i afp://Eric-Shaheens-Core-2-Duo-iMac.local:/Volumes/mylife /Users/frontrow/Movies/iMac/

mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error -5019, errno is 2

Any ideas where I am going wrong?

Update... If I enter:
mount_afp afp://username:password@ip/iMac/ ~frontrow/Movies/iMac
It mounts my iMacs internal hard drive without problems

However, If I enter:
mount_afp afp://username:password@ip/Volumes/media ~frontrow/Movies/iMac
I get the following message:
mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error -5019, errno is 2

Any help is really appreciated!

Thanks - this really helped. I have now been able to unmount the share points I do not want. My new problem is getting it to mount the external drive... I entered the command below, but get an error at the end.

mount_afp -i afp://Eric-Shaheens-Core-2-Duo-iMac.local:/Volumes/mylife /Users/frontrow/Movies/iMac/

mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error -5019, errno is 2

Any ideas where I am going wrong?



Update... If I enter:
mount_afp afp://username:password@ip/iMac/ ~frontrow/Movies/iMac
It mounts my iMacs internal hard drive without problems

However, If I enter:
mount_afp afp://username:password@ip/Volumes/media ~frontrow/Movies/iMac
I get the following message:
mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error -5019, errno is 2

Any help is really appreciated!

SUCCESS! I got it working with the following command:
mount_afp afp://username:password@iMac.local/mylife ~frontrow/Movies/iMac

However, I have another issue... Any video file I choose from my external drive gives me the "No content found" screen on the AppleTV. If I copy the same files over to the AppleTV they work just fine. It shows the file sizes correctly on the ATV, but it shows all videos to be 0:00 in length. Any ideas on this issue?

[quiksilverhk]

Does anyone know how to mount a specific directory on a disc using the same commands. I would rather not give everyone access to all my other data through my ATV Files interface.

Anyone got any ideas?

[globalreset]

However, I have another issue... Any video file I choose from my external drive gives me the "No content found" screen on the AppleTV. If I copy the same files over to the AppleTV they work just fine. It shows the file sizes correctly on the ATV, but it shows all videos to be 0:00 in length. Any ideas on this issue?

I have the exact same problem. I can navigate my afp volume, selecting any folder and file, but I see correct file sizes and 0:00 length. And selecting the videos (or even plain mp3s) for playback gives me a "No content found". Those same files copied over to the AppleTV work fine.

The disk is Airport Disk hanging off a new Airport Extreme base station, if it matters. I have it mounted on the atv as ~/Movies/ext. I tested copying a file from ~/Movies/ext to ~/Movies and it worked fine (verifies I have appropriate read permissions. File plays fine in ~/Movies, but not in the ~/Movies/ext folder.

Any ideas?

[globalreset]

FYI: My problem went away when I upgraded from 0.2.1 to 0.2.2. Now I can play video/audio off a remote AFP share without any problem. Now my only problems is that I wasted my time and money upgrading the hard drive in the AppleTV