This is a set of packages for creating diskless XBMC clients.

Note: This package contains parts that are based on mythbuntu-diskless,
which uses parts of LTSP. Both packages have their own licenses.

Copyright (C) 2010  Lars Op den Kamp <[email protected]>

================================================================================

Introduction
============
This package installs the server software that is needed to let any PC boot from
the network and start XBMC on that PC without installing anything.

It works by creating an image of an Ubuntu installation with XBMC on a server
and having your clients boot that (read only) image. The client's configuration
and media databases are stored via NFS, so they won't be lost when you reboot
your client.

This brings us some advantages:
- no noisy harddisks in your media player is needed
- if you want to upgrade XBMC on multiple clients, you will only have to install
  it once to upgrade them all
- centralised configuration of all media players (think about things like having
  the same video database on all media players)
- any normal work pc can be turned into a media center within seconds. Just
  reboot it and choose "boot from network" and it's done. Nothing is changed on
  your harddisk.

Installation
============
If you want a diskless XBMC installation, you'll need a server to host it's
files. On that server, you'll install the 'xbmc-diskless-server' package. It
contains some scripts to create a disk image for your clients and it makes sure
the required server components get installed and update the configuration.

This can be done by calling 'xbmc-diskless.sh' as user root.

Server configuration
====================
The server configuration file is stored in /etc/default/xbmc-diskless-server.conf
 and it can be overriden by /etc/xbmc-diskless-server.conf. You should make your
changes in the latter file, because it won't be overwritten by upgrades.

Almost all of the configuration is done automatically by the installer, except
 for dhcp. Read the the next section on how to configure that.

The configuration file contains explanations on all parameters in there.

By default, the client image is created as /var/lib/xbmc-diskless/xbmc.img and
 is made available on tcp port 2000. You might want to firewall this port.

Secondly, if you want to persist your client configurations and databases,
you'll have to export a directory via nfs. The provisioning process also needs
this. What provisioning means is explained below.

By default, the following directory is exported over NFS:
/var/lib/xbmc-diskless/overlay/
	0.0.0.0/0(rw,no_root_squash,async,no_subtree_check)

Change the ip mask in there to the mask of your clients because by default
 EVERYBODY IS ALLOWED TO WRITE in that directory.

The clients are booted over PXE, a network boot protocol. You don't have to
 configure anything, except if you use PXE for anything else than to boot
 XBMC clients.

DHCP configuration
==================
To let the clients know from what server they have to get the configuration
 files, you have to add the server address to the dhcp client configuration.

If you are using ISC dhcp, the default dhcp server on Ubuntu, add these lines
 to your host's configuration lines:

next-server XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX;
filename "/xbmc-netboot/pxelinux.0";

Replace XXX by your server's IP address.

Example:
subnet 192.168.64.0 netmask 255.255.192.0 {
	range 192.168.90.100 192.168.90.125;
	next-server 192.168.64.1;
	filename "/xbmc-netboot/pxelinux.0";
}

Restart your dhcp server to make the new configuration active:
sudo /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart

Image creation
==============
Creating a new image is easy. Just start the xbmc-diskless.sh GUI and follow
 the instructions on your screen.

First "create" a new target. Next you compress the target by chosing "pack" and
 the last step is installing the new image by chosing "install".

Client configuration
====================
If you want to change anything in the client configuration, you can do that in
the image in step 2) above.

Another way is by doing passing boot arguments to
the client. Besides the normal linux kernel arguments, the following
xbmc-diskless specific ones are available:

wol=00:11:22:33:44:55
	send a wake-on-lan signal to the server

xbmcdir=/dir/to/overlay
	change the overlay directory

xbmcdirkey=MAC
	use the mac address of the client as directory name in xbmcdir for this client

xbmcdirkey=HOSTNAME
	use the host name of the client as directory name in xbmcdir for this client

xbmcdirkey=someothername
	use this name as key for _every_ client. this will overwrite files if you have
	multiple clients!

You can also log on to the client and change the configuration in there. Please
note that only the directories /etc and /home/xbmc are persisted. Everything
else will be restored to the original state after a reboot.

To log on to the client, use ssh and connect as user 'xbmc' to the host. The
password is set in your server config.

Provisioning
============
You might want to distribute some files to one or more clients without adding
them to the image. Think about your video database, lirc config files, etc.

That's what the provisioning mechanism is for. In the directory
/var/lib/xbmc-diskless/provsion you can a directory 'default' with files you
want to have copied to all clients on the first boot. Those files will be copied
 to the client's /home/xbmc directory.

You can also add directories for each separate client by creating a directory
with the mac address of the client as name (without the colons).

Please make sure you have the permissions set correctly:
chown 1000:1000 to each of the files.

/etc is symlinked to /home/xbmc/config so you can add files there too.

To update the provisioning package, start the xbmc-diskless.sh GUI and chose
 "provision"

Latest version
==============
https://launchpad.net/~lars-opdenkamp/+archive/xbmc-diskless