Using the Netgear EVA 8000 HD with a linux server / 2009-01-18

I recently had the opportunity to test the Netgear EVA 8000 HD, my review of the Netgear EVA 8000 HD. But I am one of those people who does not run Windows at all at home, especially not as a server.

Accessing the content

The box only wants to access files via windows fileshares (also known as SMB shares or CIFS shares). Those are easy to set up in Linux using the Samba package. I simply added a few shares to /etc/samba/smb.conf like:

[revision3]
    comment = Revision3 movies
    path = /scratch/media2/revision3
    public = yes
    writable = no

[mp3]
    comment = mp3
    path = /scratch/mp3
    public = yes
    writable = no

This works, and the box can open files, play them. Setting them 'public' means you do not have to use the on-screen keypad of the mediaplayer to enter login names and passwords.

Creating a share for the 'data save location'

The 'media library management' of the Netgear EVA 8000 HD really likes a location to save its index files. I created a directory especially for this purpose:

drwxr-xr-x 6 nobody nogroup 4096 2009-01-18 11:39 /scratch/netgeareva

And created a samba share for it:

[netgeareva]
    comment = config path netgear eva
    path = /scratch/netgeareva
    public = yes
    writable = yes

Now the mediaplayer can save its library in this location and it will save a lot of time on scanning. The ownership by user nobody and the public = yes make sure no username/password is needed to access the share.