I have lots of audio and video on my mythtv box (a big ole fedora box stuffed in the closet) that I want to share with friends (and myself when I’m on my laptop in the office). I also just got a lot of new audio (indie and electronic) from my pal Tung.

I’ve already got the mDNSResponder and mt-daapd to serve up the “share” to iTunes. So the Powerbook in the kitchen is playing it over the whole-house using the AirTunes Express, but i’m in the office, and I didn’t put any in-wall or ceiling speakers in here. Plus, I’m on my gentoo laptop, and have some headphones on.

Have no fear, NFS is tried and true. And no problem to setup:

edit /etc/exports (here’s mine):

/var/audio 192.168.0.6/255.255.255.0(rw,sync)
/var/video 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0(rw,sync)

Now let’s edit /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny to allow everyone who jumps on my network:
hosts.allow:

portmap: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
lockd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
rquotad: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
mountd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
statd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0

hosts.deny:

portmap: ALL
lockd: ALL
rquotad: ALL
mountd: ALL
statd: ALL

OK, let’s start it: /etc/init.d/nfs start and add to boot: chkconfig –add nfs && chkconfig nfs on

Now on the client (my gentoo laptop):

# mount mythtv-server:/var/audio /mnt/audio

Now, that was just too easy.

see http://nfs.sourceforge.net/nfs-howto/ for more help.

I’ve been having lots of fun with the new server — setting all kinds of automagically updating scripts and fun toys. I setup up automatic Bayesian-filter based learning of spam for all accounts on my box. See SpamAssassin Learning for more details.

I’ve also been loving gentoo’s ebuild system. I even managed to modify/create an ebuild for some software I wanted to install:

raop_play - a music file player for Apple Airport Express for Linux

Alas, now I am not bound to the Mac (or gasp, Windows) for streaming to my Airport Express.

So, now I have some music files (imported or bought from iTunes Music Store, stripped of DRM with Fairkeys, converted to mp3 with some scripts), served up over a mDNSresponding/ZeroConf iTunes Music Share, then I also serve them up over my own Shoutcast Streaming Radio Station (so I can listen anywhere), then I tune into it with my raop_play to stream it wirelessly to the Whole House Audio…. very nice.

Now, if only I could get that web front-end coded up in Ruby on Rails and served to a Nokia Wireless Handheld device (or my Siemens SX66 over wi-fi). Then I’d be set.