[mythtv-users] combining hardware and still running mythtv

Jim Abernathy jfabernathy at outlook.com
Thu Jan 4 20:41:34 UTC 2018



> On Jan 4, 2018, at 2:55 PM, Tim Draper <veehexx at zoho.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ---- On Thu, 04 Jan 2018 19:28:04 +0000 Jim Abernathy <jfabernathy at outlook.com> wrote ---- 
>> Currently I have too many computers in my house.  The ones we use daily are 2 Mac’s and a Linux Desktop.  There are 2 mythtv FE connected to TVs and then there are the ones I want to start combining.   
>> 
>> My NAS is a NAS4Free server 
>> My Mythbuntu backend is stand alone in a closet. 
>> I have a Windows 10 system that is used rarely for games on Steam, but very rarely. I hate to scrap it. 
>> 
>> I tried using the VirtualBox feature of NAS4Free to run mythtv, but that was very unstable on my system. 
>> 
>> I tested successfully Mythtv as a VirtualBox VM under Windows 10, but you can’t keep windows from rebooting after updates and you can only delay these updates 35 days.  I want Mythtv to run 24/7 365. 
>> 
>> So it occurred to me from one responder to a previous thread that maybe creating a Linux Server running Mythtv as it primary function but enable file serving features like are needed to be a NAS might be the way to go.  Maybe run NAS4Free as a VM under Linux. 
>> 
>> does this sound doable or am I just drinking too much whiskey? 
>> 
>> Jim A 
>> 
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>> 
> I've recently reconfigured my home server. everything was running on the physical machine and far too much bespoke weird stuff going on to easily fix and maintain it sensibly.
> its now almost all virtualised now.
> Centos7 minimal, with 4.4 longterm kernel via epel-kernel (takes me to feb 2020 for support) and KVM for hypervisor.
> guests all run the same centos7minimal with 4.4 lt kernel. to avoid me having to touch it very often.
> 
> host runs samba fileshare, and mythBE/mythweb.
> VM's all connect via KVM NAT interface to the samba share which handles any file interaction (rather than storing them within the VM). KVM needs a NATed interface for guest<>host comms (and guest<>guest comms i think). also need bridged interface if your accessing it externally.
> each vm has a purpose; sql, torrent, owncloud, zoneminder, squeezebox.
> the only reason i didn't VM mythtv is because the Pentium it runs on cant do VT-d which is needed for pci-passthru as i run a PCIe DVB-S2 card. when that needs replacing, then i'll be looking at IPbased tuners so can pretty much virtualise the entire system.
> 
> best thing i did as squeezebox/LMS is so reliant on certain perl versions that it made upgrading a bit of a faff or all together a headache with conflicting version requirements.
> VM also gets the benefit of snapshots.
> 
> i did look at docker (everything i run is available with docker containers but the fact they don't seem to work well in the long term with regard to patching, it wasn't the route i took. that said, i did use a bit of the docker mentality of keeping the containers (VM guests) to a minimum by keeping live data outside of them. SQL is the exception as it stores it's DB's inside the VM. All others reference their data via samba share.
> 
> also, i came away from multiple partitions/LVM thinLV's back into a single big ext4 partition. far easier to manage diskspace.
> 
> 
> Took a week to get things reconfigured and documented and learn KVM's quirks. It's now been in place for about a week, and so far i've seen no difference than running the services on the physical host. if it's host issues, i should be back online within a day. Guest issues then it'll only break that specific service.
> 
> well worth looking into KVM over virtualbox though. i found it performs better and more suited to headless servers.
> 

This all looks interesting and complicated.  I thought I gave this level of complexity up when I retired. :-)

I have to decide which hardware to repurpose even to build a test system.  The production Mythtv system needs to stay functional thru any testing, so that leaves the Win10 system or the NAS4Free system.  Both are Core i7 3rd generation with enough memory. I have boxes of drives.  

If I had any confidence that I could backup my Win10 system with Macrium Reflect and then restore at some point, then I could use that hardware for a test.  I can use some external USB drives to dump everything off the N4F NAS and reuse that hardware.  I’m more confident with that option.

Jim A

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