Firefly and multiple user libraries

[Anonymous]

I’m just curious if anyone has thought about providing different library views on a per user basis. Does anyone think that’s a worthwhile idea?

Right now, I’ve collected all of my music, along with my wife and son’s music, onto a single server that’s running Firefly. I use a Roku Soundbridge to play it all on my stereo. It would be nice if, when I’m connecting to the server, if I could connect to just my own music (and similarly, my wife could connect to hers). Aside from reducing the amount of stuff to browse through, it would also allow us to have playlists with the same names (without needing to rename them on the server). I haven’t seen anyone else raise that issue, so maybe I’m the only one who sees value in it.

Thoughts?

Jester

[fizze]

It’s possible to run multiple instances of firefly that point to different directories, for instance.
The how-tos have been discussed a couple of times in this forum.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Fizze, for the info. Can you point me to any of those threads? I tried various searches (“multiple”, “instances”, “more than one”, “several” to name a few) and couldn’t find anything.

Thanks,
Jester

[rsl360]

@JesterJ wrote:

Thanks, Fizze, for the info. Can you point me to any of those threads? I tried various searches (“multiple”, “instances”, “more than one”, “several” to name a few) and couldn’t find anything.

No, you won’t because the search engine for this forum is not (presently) working properly. There is no index for the older messages, this is the result of changing the forum software. (but at least we are no longer overun with spam.)

Anyway, Google is your friend. You can use the advanced search feature to search this site. So, just enter “multiple instances site:http://forums.fireflymediaserver.org/” into the regular google search box. Or, just go here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=multiple+instances+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fforums.fireflymediaserver.org%2F&btnG=Search

The basic answer to your question (which seems like a very good idea) is: -Create a second config file with a different name. Presently I have /usr/local/etc/mt-daapd.conf. Make a copy of that and change the name to something appropriate, say, wifes-mt-daapd.conf. Edit the new file and change the “server name”, the port used, the logfile name and the name of the db_parms. (I should point out that I have not actually tried this myself yet) So, maybe change the “server name” from Firefly to “Wifes_Music”, change the port from 3689 to 3690 (not sure this step is essential), change the log file from /var/log/mt-daapd.log to /var/log/wifes_music-mt-daapd.log, and change the name of the db_parms from /usr/loca/cache/db_parms to /usr/local/cache/wifes-db_parms. Now, start up another instance of firefly by running the startup command with the -c switch. “/usr/local/sbin/mt-daapd -c /usr/loca/etc/wifes-mt-daapd.conf” This should give you a second instance of firefly running.

Now, I skipped something, didn’t I…. What about the music? Well, I hope that your music, your wifes music and your sons music are in different directories. (if they are co-mingled I don’t know what to do.) So, just go back into the conf files and adjust the locations of the music.

Anyway, try that.

rsl

[Anonymous]

Thanks! Also for the search tips. I’ll have to try playing with the setup you suggest.

Regards,
Jester

[RigasW]

Hi Jester,

another approach is to work with playlists.

We use the Java stand alone client as player and with that tool you can easily create playlists for you and your wife. Those playlists sit in the sqlite database, which as well holds all the music information of firefly.

If you use itunes as client, you can see and use those playlists as well (but you cannot create them with itunes).

We have a collection of about 10.000 songs; no problem for the slug.

Rigas

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