Category: Linux

As it turns out, because Mythbuntu already has Samba built in, it is easy to make it a file server in your home network by using the same tool. First, identify a place where you want to open up a new folder for file sharing. In this example, we’ll do “/fileserver/”. Then, let us issue the following command to edit the Samba config file.

su pico /etc/samba/smb.conf

Note the “su” command; it will require you to put in your password before editing. Once the text editor pico loads up, add the following section at the end of the configuration file.

[files]
comment = Files
path = /fileserver/
public = yes
writable = yes
create mask = 0660
directory mask = 0770
force user = mythtv
force group = mythtv

Once this is done, restart the samba daemon from your command line.

/etc/init.d/smb restart

You should now be able to access the new “files” samba share from another computer on your network.

The process to set a static IP address to a Mythbuntu box is very similar to Ubuntu, given that Mythbuntu is built upon Ubuntu. In Mythbuntu, choose “Utilities/Setup” from the main menu, then “Setup”, and finally “Mythbuntu”. After putting in the password, you will be presented with the Mythbuntu Control Centre. Under “Advance Management”, you will be able to “Launch Terminal”.

First, check out what your current settings are.

ifconfig -a

Take a note what your current broadcast, subnet mask, and gateway settings are. Also, have you decided on an IP address for your Mythbuntu box yet?

Next, issue this command to modify the Mythbuntu box’s network settings.

sudo pico /etc/network/interfaces

In the pico text editor tool, you probably only see a set of “lo”, or loopback, settings. Let’s add a new set for “eth0” so that the whole content of the file looks something like the following. Note your addresses may be different. In my case, I set the box’s static IP address to 192.168.1.3, for example, and yours may be different.

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
	address 192.168.1.3
	netmask 255.255.255.0
	network 192.168.1.0
	broadcast 192.168.1.255
	gateway 192.168.1.1

Finally, restart the network card with the following command.

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

That’s it! You should now be able to access the Mythbuntu box with the same IP every time now! No more trying to guess what the IP address might change to every time you turn it on!