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5 Image example : Rudream based image installation

As an example, I'll show you a rudream based image, modified by BlackCannon, and know as the Rucannon. This is my favorite image and that's why I promote it but that is only my personal choice. You can find alternative images on sites like Dreambox Net Australia or in the sat-industry.net forum.

5.1 Basics

I use the BlackCannon6 image, which I got from the sat-industry.net forum . HDD and USB stick is present for this example, and I clearly suggest to use Rucannon 3 if you have no USB stick or Hdd to move settings on it; Rucannon6 is very complete but there is not a lot a free space left and even favorites can give a full flash.

Install the image as described in section 4.2. For this exercise, do not tick the copy settings, in order to have an installation with empty settings. After the installation, you have to select, TV standard, choose your language and configure your satellite dish(es). (Explained in 2.1 ). Do not do the scan part of the 2.2 part for now.
Then check your network settings as explained in 2.3.

It's now time to move add-ons to USB or HDD to have more room free. If the USB stick is not formatted, check how to, inside the 4.3 part or use the Format USB storage function included in the service menu: To get there, push the "dream" button, then "setup", then "External Add On" and "Service Menu".

Once the USB stick formatted, choose "Move Addon on USB" or "Move Addon on HDD " and wait a bit, the time the /var directory is copied. Then the dreambox reboot. Beware that now you need the usb stick or the hdd to have the dreambox running.

You can now do a full scan of all satellites as explained in the part 2.2. You can also upload favorites previously saved with dreamboxEdit.

At this step all FTA channels are supposed to work nicely.

5.2 Emus

To receive PayTV channels, you have to install a softCAM. Such a piece of software allows you to use the official PayTV decoding card in one of the readers of the Dreambox, without having to buy an expensive adapter card. Alternatively, you can grab the decoding keys from the decoding card, and decode PayTV without having to insert the decoding card using a decryption card emulator (EMU) (note that if you don't own the card, the use of an EMU is against the law and the author of this guide will neither help you, nor point you in the right direction on how this can be achieved. Please also note that even if you own a valid subscribtion, extracting of keys from the card can be illegal in your country, seen as reverse engineering or removing anti-hacking securities).

Rucannon6 comes with 4 EMUs installed : Newcamd, Scam FullX, Scam and Radegast, but with no keys of course, making a 100% legal piece of software.
Version 3 has "only" Newcamd and Scam which is enough.

To choose your EMU, press the blue button and make your choice. CI stands for Common Interface and is to be used if you have a CAM in the PCMCIA slot.
You can choose the default EMU, and also assigned one particular EMU to one channel or to a full list of favorites.

se your EMU, press the blue button and make your choice. CI stands for Common Interface and is to be used if you have a CAM in the PCMCIA slot.
You can choose the default EMU, and also assigned one particular EMU to one channel or to a full list of favorites.
On several EMU, when its name is highlighted, by pressing OK you reach the configuration panel for this EMU. This is the case for Newcamd.
The upper part is options for the two smartcard readers and a potential phoenix interface connected to serial port.
Just check that Enable is ticked for the reader where you put your official card.
The others settings are mainly for Card Sharing. Under this mysterious name, there is just the solution to a problem; 1 house, 2 set top boxes, 1 official card. This allows to share your card between your 2 dreambox, connected by LAN.

This will probably be a full part of this guide a bit later, on how to set up a LAN CS server, and how to configure your 2 dreambox to work with.

If you do some testing yourself, remember when editing files on your PC, you must use an editor that is UNIX compatible or your Dreambox won't be able to read the files. UltraEdit is one of the Windows editors that can create UNIX compatible output.

When coming to update an EMU, most of the time, you only need to change the exe file in /var/bin. For example, let's continue on newcamd; Change EMU with the remote control from newcamd to CI to unlock the file, then FTP to the dreambox, rename to newcamd.old (just in case you need to go back) then upload the new newcamd.ppc that you rename to newcamd. CHMOD 755 (or 777 for some EMUs), then restart newcamd EMU with the remote control.
As I like to have the right think displayed, I also modify emulist.xml in /var/tuxbox/config in order to get the right version displayed. (again, and again, UltraEdit32 and file kept to UNIX mode).

5.3 File sharing

A question often rises; How to share files between the PC and the dreambox.

FTP : You can always easily get or put files in the dreambox using a FTP client. That's easy, but that's only to copy files, not to remotely use them. Simply refer to the 3.2 part

Samba : This is the protocol used for the network file sharing on windows. There is a nice Samba plug-in integrated into the Rudream, that you can download from internet, directly on the dreambox. Use the standard procedure to install it, described in the 7.1 part. You can also download one from Dreambox.net.au
Standard configuration should be OK, but you can modify it. You just need to edit (Unix editor !) the smb.conf file in /var/etc. Default is sharing the /hdd as [Harddisk] and the /var directory as [Configuration]. You should add or remove other sharing.
With that configuration you can open TS files without having to copy them back to the PC before, as example
Just be careful that even if dreambox can managed files larger than 2 Gb, even if you have NTFS formatted hard drive in your PC that also allows files more than 2 Gb, this Samba plug in does not allow to transfer files larger than 2 Gb. This ends with an error when file reach 2 Gb on the target, during the copy.

NFS : This is the protocol used by Unix Systems generally, and Linux also. You first need to set up a NFS server on the PC, then mount a directory of the dreambox that link to the shared stuff on your PC. There is a free NFS server for Win32 available on Dreambox.net.au. You can also use commercial software like SuperNFS, but I don't see the point for the use we are going to have.

Download tgpnfs10.zip from dreambox.net.au and unzip it to your install directory (c:\dreambox\TrueGridNFS\ in my case, but that don't matter ).
I am going to detail installation for windows XP, for 98 please refer to the readme file.
Make a "etc" directory in c:\windows. Copy the two files "exports" and "rpc" from the install dir to this c:\windows\etc
As suggest in the readme, and even not mandatory with this config, edit c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. I suggest you use UltraEdit32 also here. (You can use notepad but beware notepad add a .txt extension, that can be hidden if you do not untick "Hide extensions for know files type" in the explorer options: "Tools", "Folder Options", "View" )
The file should have some commentary with lines starting with # and then a line with 127.0.0.1 localhost. You can add IPs and corresponding names of your network. That way, you can type "telnet dreambox" rather "telnet 192.168.0.24". In my case I have:

127.0.0.1 localhost Server
192.168.0.24 dreambox
Other computer of my network do not have fixed IPs, but assigned by DHCP.

Let's edit the exports file that will define which folders of your PC you will share, the share name to be used and eventually permissions to access it.
You have all detailed explanations as commentary in the exports file (all lines beginning with #) but you can go directly at the end. Just put one line, with :

/d -path=d:\

That shares the "d:\" of your pc to everybody, through NFS, and is to be seen on the NFS network as /d. Put paths you want, but keep it simple, it easiest to make it work.

Then, "start", "run","cmd", "cd..", "cd..", "cd dreambox", "cd TrueGridNFS" as my install dir is c:\dreambox\TrueGridNFS\.
Type "portmap add", then "nfs add" then "nfs start". You must be administrator to be able to do that. You just install 2 services that will be launched every time you boot.
If "nfs start" gives a fatal error on nfs, check your exports file, there is an error in.

if you modify the exports file, you need to restart the service, though the services administration windows of XP, or just simply typing "nfs stop" then "nfs start".
if you want to uninstall TrueGrid NFS server, simply type "nfs remove", "portmap remove".

To check if everything works, follow the readme instructions that are really detailed and well explained, thanks to the author, but it should look as in this capture screen.

Now we have a NFS server running, let's move on the client side.
First make a nfs folder in the /var directory. You can telnet and mount manually this /var/nfs to the NFS d/ shared by typing :

mount -o wsize=1024,rsize=2048 192.168.0.1:/d /var/nfs
You can then add this line into /var/etc/init to have it done every time you boot (but after the "ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.24" line ! You need a network to have NFS working...)

As we are on Rudream image, there is a way to do that through menus. "Dream", "Setup", "expert setup", "Communications Setup", blue button for "mounts".
Type the IP of your server, here "192.168.0.1", NFS is the good choice, then type just "d" as the share directory [dir] (no "/" ), then type "/var/nfs" as the mount directory [LocalDir], Set Options to rw,nolock, tick the automount case if you want to have this NFS share every time you boot, then the yellow button to save (answer no to the box which appears, except if you want to do another mount/sharing).
The green button launch manually the mount, and you should have a success message.

You're done now. If you press the upper arrow, then "text" then go into the "root" choice, "var", "nfs" you should see the d drive of your pc.
There is one trick (bug ?); Files directly in d:\ are not shown in the dreambox menu, even present when doing a ls in a telnet session. So just do a "movie" directory in your d:\ and put your files there, that you can play directly from your pc, without having to copy it over the network before.

Nb : if you have no HD, you can mount /hdd instead of /var/nfs and do recordings with the dreambox, directly to the PC HD. It's Ok for recording and playing back, but timeshifting gives poor results with pixelisation. NFS is quite slow and reading the file same time you write it is quite bandwidth consuming.

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