uShare on Buffalo TeraStation Live for XBox 360 Video

uShare, a GeeXBox project, is a media server which is compatible with the new XBox 360 “Spring Update” media player capability. Running uShare on a desktop seems straightforward, but getting it working on such a lightweight machine as the TeraStation Live is a bit more difficult, particularly if you’re not experienced at cross-platform compiling.

Bear in mind that the TeraStation Live is ARM-based, unlike the older TeraStations. Luckily, many other embedded network appliances are ARM-based, so many of their compiled binaries can be run without modification.

Before working with uShare, the TeraStation must be hacked for full console access. This is an involved process which is explained here.

Once console access is available, install ipkg and use it to install uShare. The ipkg for the Maxtor Shared Storage II (also ARM-based) should work, so these directions apply. Then uShare can be downloaded and installed by following these instructions.

For me, the startup configuration didn’t work on my TS Live, so I simply created a script called ‘relaunch-ushare’. It kills any running uShare process, then restarts it.

#!/bin/bash
kill -9 `pidof ushare` > /dev/null
/opt/bin/ushare --xbox --cfg=/opt/etc/ushare.conf --verbose -D

The relevant portions of my /opt/etc/ushare.conf file are as follows:

# Port to listen to (default is random from IANA Dynamic Ports range)
USHARE_PORT=49201

# Directories to be shared (space or CSV list).
# Ex: USHARE_DIR=/dir1,/dir2
USHARE_DIR=/mnt/array1/media/video/movies

# Use XboX 360 compatibility mode (yes/no)
ENABLE_XBOX=YES

To administer uShare via its web interface, browse to http://server:portnumber/web/ushare.html. Note that the port number should be whatever appears in /opt/etc/ushare.conf file on USHARE_PORT line.