This guide is obsolete now, use this one instead
It's only for arm devices, like RT-AC56U, RT-AC68U/R, RT-AC87U/R
For mipsel optware version go here
For mipsel entware version go here
Advantages: easy to update without waiting for asus, easy to apply patches, very stable with zero crashes at least for me on RT-AC66U, I enabled movie thumbnails with filmstrip (will take a little bit longer to scan db), this version will not rebuild entire database after every router reboot.
Let's start
1 - Turn off Media server from router ui, insert an usb drive in to the router, should be formatted as ext2, ext3 or ext4
2 - Install Asus Download Master to activate optware environment, uninstall or disable after if you don't using it, if you need a better download manager use transmission instead
3 - Enable jffs partition (skip to point 5 if was previously enabled)
4 - Reboot router
5 - Open terminal and input the next commands:
ipkg upgrade
ipkg install nano findutils
6 - Download prepared debian with all necesary libs and decompress
tar -xvzf ./debian-minidlna-1.1.4-arm.tgz
7 - Download start-stop script, in this script is a path EXT_DIR to your media folder witch will be mounted in debian as /mnt, mine is /mnt/sda1/Media and if your disk has a label change sda1 from CHROOT_DIR with your disk label, modify the script to match your settings with vi or nano editor, use this command nano /opt/etc/init.d/S99debian
chmod a+rx /opt/etc/init.d/S99debian
8 - Download services-list that will run in chrooted debian, for now is only minidlna but if you want to install another packages in debian like transmission-daemon, you need to add transmission start-stop script name, ex. S50transmission
chmod a+rx /opt/etc/chroot-services.list
9 - Now create services-start script to start debian together with all other services
Paste this lines in terminal
#!/bin/sh
sleep 10
/opt/etc/init.d/S99debian start
10 - Now create services-stop script to stop debian together with all other services
Paste this lines in terminal
#!/bin/sh
/opt/etc/init.d/S99debian stop
11 - Make scripts executable
Start minidlna
12 - Go to 192.168.1.1:8200 (this is the default router ip, modify to your router ip if you change it previously) and see how minidlna is creating db, press refresh on your browser for progress.
If all numbers are 0 (zero) after some time, you forget to set the right path to your media folder, read again point 7 carefully
If you want to enter chrooted debian to install other packages or to modify some options, use this commands:
mount -o bind /proc/ /opt/debian/proc/
mount -o bind /sys/ /opt/debian/sys/
chroot /opt/debian /bin/bash
To exit, just type
To update from a previous version follow this steps:
1. Stop minidlna
2. Download latest version:
wget -c -O /opt/debian/var/tmp/minidlna.conf https://goo.gl/G4IOC2
3. Enter chrooted debian
mount -o bind /proc/ /opt/debian/proc/
mount -o bind /sys/ /opt/debian/sys/
chroot /opt/debian /bin/bash
4. Input next commands:
rm -r /opt/minidlna
cd /var/tmp
cp -r minidlna.conf /etc
chmod 755 /etc/minidlna.conf
dpkg -i minidlna_1.1.4-1_armel.deb
5. Exit debian
6. Start minidlna
7. Enjoy your media :)
To completely uninstall chrooted debian:
1. Stop minidlna
2. Verify if external folder is not mounted, output should be empty, if not - stop again.
Very important!!! If continue and external folder is mounted, all media files inside will be deleted.
3. Delete debian folder
4. Delete debian startup script
5. Delete chrooted services list
This is how it looks like on my Samsung TV