[mythtv-users] Before I tear my hair out can a slave BE...

[Nick Morrott]

On 05/02/2009, glenhawk at optusnet.com.au <glenhawk at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> Can a slave backend be setup to only run when it is needed?
>
>  I had 4 tuners in my MBE but I changed hardware. My new MBE can only hold 3 tuners (one dual one single and I'd rather not buy another dual) and it is only occasional that I need the 4th tuner (usually when a bunch of shows are starting and ending at the same times) so I thought I could setup a SBE that would only need to switch on occasionally.
>
>  Is this possible or will both machines always have to run at the same time?

Irrespective of the WOL-centric posts in this thread, you _can_ run a
slave backend on an 'as needed' basis (and is what I used to do before
we got rid of a second cable box). You shouldn't have any problems
doing this.

You will probably find you need to manually switch it on and off when
you see upcoming recording conflicts (although Chris and David's posts
are encouraging regarding using WOL for this purpose), but once the
slave backend has connected to the master backend, the scheduler runs
in an attempt to resolve any recording conflicts by using the newly
available capture cards on the slave backend. When the slave backend
is disconnected, the scheduler will run again and remove any capture
cards on the slave and will not attempt to record from them.

To get things working smoothly:

i) Use fixed IPs/hostnames for your MythTV machines
ii) Ensure you specify non-localhost (i.e. not 127.0.0.1/localhost)
addresses for your local and master backends and database
iii) Ensure your mysql.txt (or config.xml) files contain the updated addresses.
iv) For slave backends, make sure you use the correct IP for the master backend

Once you start adding multiple machines to your MythTV network, you
may need to update your MySQL installation to GRANT access PRIVILEGES
to allow these remote machines to connect to the MythTV database -
details for doing this are discussed on the MythTV wiki and in
numerous posts in the -users archive.

Nick

-- 
Nick Morrott

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